Friday, December 8, 2006

Apocalypto: Paganism revealed


Here is a fascinating review of Mel Gibson's new film from the Lew Rockwell site. It sounds too violent for my taste, but it may offer some insights into our own culture. (Reading the reviews is enough for me, however....) The human sacrifice that was part of many pagan civilizations is shown in its full brutality. Without the redeeming sacrifice of Christ on the Cross there is no option but self-destruction.
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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Too violent for my taste, too....

jasoncpetty said...

Just saw Apocalypto last night. Go see it. I think it's a wonderful film. An interesting friend of mine failed to see in it a unifying theme, and didn't care for the character 'types' that proliferate. (But I think he mostly just hated the violence.) He argued that it was more violent than Braveheart, a point with which I disagree. Braveheart actually had blood spattering on the cameras themselves, whereas Apocalypto manages, at best, a mere blood cloud that hovers in the air ever so lightly after a devastating blow to a warrior's head with a mattock. Some scenes were really intense, drama-wise. Almost felt like my heart was being carved out of my still-living body with an obsidian knife. Wait. No. Not at all like that.

Read that Antonio Sacramone review over at First Things if you want a decent film-ish review. (I think there are spoilers of a few scenes that are, in a movie that is essentially one long chase scene, rather crucial.) But if you just want two cents from someone who likes just about any movie there is (if there isn't too much sex or adultery, that is -- or adulterous sex, or the Hollywood twofer, as I call it), go see a movie with some excellent Christian undertones.

Or is that just wishful thinking?

elena maria vidal said...

Wow. Thanks, jason. I think it is a continuation of Gibson's "Passion," to show the option to the Eternal Sacrifice, which is a culture of death.