Apocalypto – the film

I have to admit that this film intrigued me. First, I heard that it was shot in an obscure South American language. Then it was said that it was horrendously violent. But various reports also said that it was visually stunning.

All these, what were for me, rumours, piqued my curiosity, so I blockbustered the film on Saturday (if you can google, you can blockbuster!!).

Well, it is true that the language in which the film was shot is odd – Italian subtitles helped me out with this though. The film is stunning, and it is violent, but not horrendously or needlessly so in my opinion. Sometimes violence, in films, can be appropriate. I’ve seen much worse and much more extreme violence in other films – the Kill Bill series, for example. And often the violence is just there for the sake of it, and not much else. (Kill Bill was a bit ott, but the way in which the violence was presented seemed, in some way, to reduce the brutality, which, in turn, makes the violence more palatable. At least it does for me.) Or maybe it is just that I have seen so much violence that I am numb to it. While this could be argued, I like to think that I am still able to differentiate between reality and fiction.

Stop reading, start speaking

Stop translating in your head and start speaking Italian for real with the only audio course that prompt you to speak.

Anyway, back in the days of human sacrifice in South America, levels of violence were much higher than they are now. After all, killing your own food was a pretty violent act, but with no hypermarkets, these people had little option. So any accurate portrayal of the people of these times has to include a certain degree of violence.

Talking about the people, the film’s portrayal of jungle dwelling Indians was excellent, with life being shown to be both basic, brutal and tender.

Some aspects of the plot were a little hard to swallow, but I’ve seen much worse.

Nope, I’m not going to give any more away because all in all, I reckon Apocalypto is worth seeing – but not with little ones present. Please.

Chad

+Alex Roe is from the UK, but has lived and worked in Milan, Italy, for many years. Alex has been interviewed by the BBC on Italy issues. He tweets news and information about Italy to over 37,000 Twitter followers via @newsfromitaly on Twitter.

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