What Apocalypto really comes down to is an incredible cat-and-mouse picture: that was Mel Gibson's primary intent and he blasted that bulls-eye. Set during the decline of the vast Mayan civilization before the arrival of the Spanish missionaries, the story basically follows a tribesman named Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood) whose tribe faces violent rapture by another tribe and is led to be a sacrifice for the god Kukulkan. Shortly after, the chase ensues and winds down to pure action; in terms of genre, there really hasn't been a chase as memorable as this one in a long time but undoubtedly, it comes at the cost of exploring the depth of Mayan advances in civilization.
This movie and The Fountain by Aronofsky sparked an interest in Mayan peoples for me and prompted me to discover more about them in general. I was in awe by how advanced and sophisticated they were culturally and scientifically before their first signs of collapse in the 8th/9th centuries; also, the fact that the period of Mayan culture that was depicted in this movie was during its decline was equally shocking considering how massive it seemed in the film. I honestly believe the Spanish would've grown restless and defeated had they faced the Mayans during their peak as it took them nearly two centuries to subdue the Mayans substantially.
Yet, for all its strengths, the one aspect I found disagreeable was the quote from Will Durant that opens the entire movie:
"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within."
It's a foolhardy statement that attempts to justify the fall of an entire way of life.* I believe there's some truth to it but there were ultimately so many vital factors at work, it'd be foolish to try and pin it down to one such statement - no matter how eloquent. But in context with Gibson's perspective on the Mayan collapse, a case can definitely be made for such words.
Much can and has been said about the historical inaccuracies but I feel the structure of narrative film is more about experience than it is dates and facts. And Apocalypto is undeniable in that sense: like 2001, we are stranded in uncharted territory - free to roam or drift as we please. Just as colonists and missionaries considered their world new, so this is a new world for our senses.
*Descendants of the ancient Mayans as well as their cultural/ethnic identities still persist to this day.
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