Word: paws
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...fall of the Mayan empire. He’s more interested in painting the last bit of blood on that recently eviscerated human heart. The violence in “Apocalypto” seems obscene because Gibson does nothing to justify or contextualize it. The main character (Jaguar Paw, played by Rudy Youngblood) is motivated largely by the fear of having his skin peeled off, literally...
...movie tells the story of a peaceful 16th-century jungle-dweller named Jaguar Paw. The first quarter of the film presents his idyllic village as a kind of Eden. The second quarter is a vision of Hell, as a raiding party for the nearby Mayan empire torches the town, rapes the women and drags the men to the Mayan capital as featured guests at a monstrous and ongoing sacrifice to the gods. JP watches in horror as a priest has several of his friends spread-eagled on squat stone, then hacks out their still-beating hearts and displays them...
...little use for the institutional Roman Catholic church, preferring a "less mainstream version of his faith." True, but the Traditionalists with whom Gibson is often associated are defined primarily by their objections to the liberalizations under the Second Vatican Council of 1962-5 - not an issue in Jaguar Paw...
Apocalypto, set in 16th century Latin America, is more of the problematic same. By dawn's early light, a brutish Maya war party falls upon an Edenic jungle village--murder, rape and enslavement their goal. Among their captives is Jaguar Paw who, having hidden his pregnant wife and firstborn, narrowly escapes--a little divine intervention here--having his heart cut out by the Maya high priests. He is then given the opportunity to run to save himself (and his family), which involves a high degree of athleticism and a lot of skill at improvising killing tools from such simple materials...
...view to our own. It is given to worshipping false idols and values and, for all its military might, is rotting from within. Even the simple village, before it is destroyed, revels in irrelevant pleasure. What everyone needs is, well, a savior. And that's where Jaguar Paw comes in. He is, for all intents and purposes, dead not once but half a dozen times in this movie, yet always manages a resurrection. He even has a spear wound in his abdomen, not unlike a certain other divine figure. Most important of all, he is at one with his universe...