Apocalypto is a 2006 movie made in the Yucatec Maya language (a modern approximation of an ancient Maya language, which is still spoken in the Yucatan peninsula), and written by an Australian/American (Mel Gibson, who also produced and directed) and an Iranian/American (Farhad Safinia). It is set in Guatemala and the Yucatan of pre-Colombian times.
The primary conflict is a physical conflict of person versus person, in the form of the main character and his peaceful tribe of hunter/gatherers versus a more violent Mayan society from a distant city. The city dwellers hunt other tribes for the purpose of obtaining slaves and victims for human sacrificial rituals. This conflict runs throughout the entire movie, and leads to a second person…show more content… Despite my former complaint, the language used is very authentic, and I truly wish I had seen it before my portrayal of the Aztec priestess, as that culture has many similarities with the Maya. In the USA Today article "The Lost World of the Maya.” Dan Vergano interviews members of an archaeological expedition in 2009 at Cara Blanca, Belize, which was led by archaeologist Andrew Kinkella. What is described is a dangerous expedition, including cutting ones way through forests and jungles, long days digging in deadly heat through countless remains, and even diving into seemingly bottomless cisterns filled with crocodiles, and worse.
There finds seem in some cases to verify the film, or at least give context to its depiction of Guatemalan life at the time. With regard to one particularly interesting find that could relate to the film, Vergano quotes Kinkella: "’We think they were sweat lodges,’ Kinkella says, ‘places of purification before offerings were made to the pools.’ Sweat lodges are important places in many Native American traditions.” (Vergano,
