Riverwood Presbyterian Church

Movies

Guest Movie Review

by Clay Staggs

I think that many of the readers of this Blog will know the guest reviewer here, George Kelley. George emailed me a review of the new Mel Gibson film Apocalypto. I reproduce here his exact review, with his permission.

I saw Apocalypto tonight and I was blown away. From a technical sense, it is stunning; an outstanding feat in filmmaking, with realistic portrayals, costumes and sets. You actually felt like you were watching life in a Mayan village. It is beautifully filmed, but it is also gory, shocking, and violent; with rapes, murders, human sacrifice and war all portrayed in the most brutal fashion. It isn’t for everyone, but it is for me. I always resented sanitized violence imposed on society by the squeamish and prudish amongst us. I think it is more dangerous for society to show a Gunsmoke type villain clutching a bloodless chest while falling than a realistic depiction would be; as the family friendly version minimizes the physical and emotional consequences of said acts, while the brutality of realistic violence gives an unfiltered view of the real world and it is more likely to repulse and dissuade. But others have a right to disagree, and to them I say, avoid this movie.

Just as Gibson’s Passion of the Christ was an overtly Catholic movie with its emphasis on Christ’s suffering and the relationship with Mary, this is a protestant movie. Specifically, this movie seems to have been written by Calvin and Hobbes, and I don’t mean the stuffed tiger and his buddy. The movie reeks of John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes.

Addressing the former, the Calvinistic themes, the characters (and specifically the protagonist of the story) seem to be guided by some sort of destiny (if ones viewpoint is secular), or a sovereign God (if one’s viewpoint is Christian). God is not mentioned per se, but much like the Lord of the Rings (another God filled movie with no mention of God), one can very much feel the sovereignty of God in all of the plot twists. Did the book of Esther not establish this same device, with all overt references to the God of the Jews left out explicitly but at the same time indelibly woven throughout the story? Same device here.

The Hobbesian references are more observable. Hobbes’ descriptions of every man at war against man, with life being nasty, brutish and short are frequent and not subtle. Power is the device used for one culture of savages (to us the viewer) to conquer another. You see it happening and yet you know from history that the victory is short lived with the Europeans on the way, who possess greater power with which to force change upon the existing civilization.

So what Christian messages did I take away?

1. The depravity of man. This film did not in any way shape or form embrace Rousseau’s notion of the “noble savage”, where man was free and good until the corrupting effects of civilization took hold. This primitive world is harsh, murderous and just as exploitative as Wal-Mart ever thought about being. One can reasonably take away from this movie that there are no innocents, only fallen creatures that are incapable of making themselves better.

2. The theme of vanities of vanities, all is vanity. Here we have one society of savages, overrun by a slightly more advanced society of savages. The progressive bunch has superior weapons and culture, when they transport their newly acquired slaves back home, we see the high and mighty men, women and children of the advanced society bidding on slaves and celebrating pagan rituals on technologically advanced pyramids. I use the word “savages”, as that is what it appears to my biased eye, yet reality forces me to acknowledge that my world of flat screen TVs, laptops and playstations might seem frivolous and primitive to the next generation a hundred years forward. And how must it all appear to a God that created the universe and is by definition infinite and lists quite the impressive resume in Job 38? While we build our temples, towers and toys, we lose sight of the fact that they will crumble. We, just as the “savages” of this movie do, love to command all to “Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” but as the poet Percy Shelley reminds us, our proclamation ultimately will stand and mock our perceived greatness with the ruins of our own monuments.

Which leads me to the last point…

3. “Put not your faith in princes and in sons of men, for there is no salvation”. This movie is about change, and the major example of such is the change from one dominant civilization to another. One group of Mayans conquers another group, yet they all fall to the Spanish. History tells us that the Spanish lose dominance to the British, who lose their influence to the United States. Do we really think that the government of the United States is eternal, especially when the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks and Romans weren’t? The only constant in life, as in this movie, is the One who watches the sparrow when it falls, and allows the mighty to rise and fall under his eye.

Go see this movie, look past the gore and see its beauty and recognize its truth.