At one point in A Prairie Home Companion, the mysterious character played by Virginia Madsen says “there is no tragedy in the death of an old man”, and under the circumstances her words have a bitter irony. This is the last film directed by the mercurial Robert Altman, and his death last November did feel like something of a tragedy for cinema. We lost a daring, innovative, imaginative filmmaker; an utterly singular artist who never compromised his reckless style to gain favour with the establishment, and even at the age of 81 he was still one of the most consistently interesting figures working in American cinema. How can the passing of such a man be considered as anything other than a tragedy?
So, one approaches A Prairie Home Companion with mixed feelings. This will be the last Robert Altman film we have the pleasure of viewing, but it’s a relief to report that the director went out on a high note. His cinematic take on Garrison Keillor’s long-running radio show is full of traditional Altman tropes - an eclectic ensemble, overlapping dialogue, an endlessly roaming camera - and it’s also full of laughs; but this light and breezy film has a surprisingly dark underbelly, and it seems eerily prophetic that this particular picture is so often preoccupied with death. Despite that shadow of death, however, A Prairie Home Companion is a wonderfully alive piece of filmmaking.
I had never heard of Garrison Keillor’s radio show before the release of this film, but apparently it has attained cult status in the US with its mix of country music, stories, jokes and spoof advertisements. It is presented by Keillor in front of a live studio audience, and it has been running for some three decades now with very little change in the formula - I suppose if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it - but this strange little production still seems to be a particularly unlikely basis for a feature film.
But it works beautifully, and much of the credit for the film’s success must go to Keillor, whose screenplay seems perfectly attuned to Altman’s direction. In dividing its attention between events both onstage and off, the film allows a wonderful mix of characters to cross paths, with Altman cherry-picking the choicest moments for inclusion in the ramshackle narrative. Keillor also appears in the film as a version of himself, and he does a very good job, particularly when the cast alongside him is such an embarrassment of acting riches. Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin are a pair of singing sisters, Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly are a hilarious double-act as singing cowboys, and Kevin Kline is on fine comic form as a barely-competent private eye. The ensemble is rounded out by Tommy Lee Jones, Virginia Madsen, Marylouise Burke and LQ Jones; and the actors all appear to be perfect fit for their various roles.
There’s not a lot in the way of plot here, but Keillor’s screenplay does inject proceedings with a small dose of tension by making this the last broadcast of his show. WLT, the radio station behind the programme, has been sold to a Texan conglomerate and there are rumours flying around the Fitzgerald theatre that A Prairie Home Companion is about to be dropped from the schedules. But the show must go on, and the performers and crew continue to go about their business while they wait for the dreaded axe to fall.
To be honest the central plot hook is - as in so many of Altman’s films - pretty much irrelevant, and what counts here is character and atmosphere. A Prairie Home Companion is a collection of lovely moments, small touches and deft strokes, which gradually builds into a warmly satisfying picture. Altman’s pacing is leisurely; he allows scenes to play out in their own time, with his camera slowly picking up on minor details, and this relaxed approach sees the film settle into a comfortable rhythm which is typically Altman. Scenes which may seem inconsequential are incorporated into the overall piece, contributing to the sense of detail and texture which the film possesses.
Altman always loved actors, and cast on display here spark off each other like they’ve been doing it for years. Streep and Tomlin share an infectious sense of fun in their scenes together, finishing each other’s sentences and giggling as they tell stories from the family’s past to Lohan’s Lola - it’s a perfect example of how Altman’s overlapping dialogue gives a naturalistic air to the way his characters interact. Harrelson and Reilly’s brilliant performances make one wish for a Dusty and Lefty spin-off movie, and their dirty joke medley towards the end of the film is a side-splitting highlight; and even if Kevin Kline’s Guy Noir often seems like a resurrection of A Fish Called Wanda’s Otto, who would complain when he can produce as many laughs as he does here?
But it’s the character played by Virginia Madsen who is the most interesting of all. Looking beautiful in a white coat and bathed in light, she’s an angel who has come to the theatre to claim some lives on the night the show dies. It’s a risky move by Altman and Keillor, to bring this fantastical element into the film, but they just about manage to swing it, and the director’s death gives this particular aspect of the picture a whole new relevance. It’s always strange when a director’s last film seems to somehow predict their imminent passing by focusing on themes of mortality, fate or regret, and it has happened a number of times in the past - think of Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice, Kieslowski’s Red or pretty much any of Kurosawa’s final pictures. A Prairie Home Companion is given a resonance through the passing of its director which is strange to experience, and it lends the enigmatic final scene a powerful edge. As the angel of death walks directly towards the camera, one can’t help wondering if it’s the man behind the camera she is coming to claim.
A Prairie Home Companion isn’t an Altman masterpiece, and there are a few niggling little flaws which must be taken into consideration. The character played by Tommy Lee Jones is a rather shapeless one, and it would have been nice to see the actor getting more of a chance to make an impact on the proceedings before finally being dealt with in such an arbitrary manner. The shaggy nature of the film’s structure also, inevitably, means that some scenes hit the mark while others don’t - in particular, I wasn’t particularly taken by the revelations about the prior relationship between Streep and Keillor’s characters - but these minor flaws thankfully don’t leave much of an impression.
This is a fine way for Robert Altman to bow out; a hugely enjoyable picture which is every bit as meandering and idiosyncratic as you’d expect it to be. A Prairie Home Companion climaxes with the all of the major characters singing and dancing on the stage, and it’s a hugely uplifting finale, but there’s a lingering sense of sadness here as well. As the credits roll they’re not just announcing the end of the movie, but the end of the line for Altman too - and as the picture comes to a close, we realise the lights have finally gone out on an extraordinary life.
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“I ain’t interested in getting mangled and embarrassed”. That’s what Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) tells a boxing agent halfway through his latest film; but if avoiding embarrassment is what Rocky wants, then one would imagine climbing into the ring to face a champion half his age would be something best avoided. Nevertheless, that’s exactly what Stallone has done for this, the sixth film in the Rocky series, and the appearance of this picture some 16 years after the series completed its descent into self-parody with Rocky V is hardly a film we’ve been awaiting with bated breath.
So where is Rocky now? Well, he’s still living in Philadelphia, where he holds the status of local hero, and he’s now running a small Italian restaurant named Adrian’s, in memory of his late wife who has passed away. The shadow of the past hangs heavily over the film’s early scenes; on the anniversary of Adrian’s death, Rocky takes his reluctant friend Paulie (Burt Young) on a nostalgic tour of the places which were important to him in years gone by, and the past has also disrupted his relationship with his son Rocky Jr. (Milo Ventimiglia), who is embarrassed by people only ever seeing him as his father’s son. Even at his restaurant, people seem more interested in hearing fight stories and getting a picture taken with the former champ than they do in having a good meal.
In fact, the first half hour of the film is pretty much all nostalgia - even when Rocky strikes up a new relationship with barmaid Marie (Geraldine Hughes) it turns out to be ‘Little Marie’ from the original Rocky all grown up - and the effect of this endless navel-gazing makes the opening section of the film feel rather maudlin. Yes, there’s an irresistible quiver of excitement to be had when the opening credits start running to the sound of Bill Conti’s classic theme, but our affection for the first Rocky film has its limits, and the film sticks so rigidly to the formula established by the previous efforts that we begin to wonder if Rocky Balboa has anything new to offer?
Thankfully, some sort of plot eventually kicks in and this film gradually begins to find its own identity. The opponent this time is Mason ‘The Line’ Dixon (Antonio Tarver), a young champion whose frequent easy knockdowns have seen the public turn against him, showering him with ice as he tried to leave the ring after a recent quick-as-a-flash victory. With many people decrying the state of the modern fight game, ESPN sets up a computer-generated match between Rocky and Mason - two champions separated by three decades - and Rocky’s victory seems to provide more evidence that standards are slipping in the boxing world. When Rocky himself sees this broadcast, it seems to unlock something inside of him, and he starts feeling the urge to pull on his gloves again. He applies for a licence and begins a bit of light training, and when Dixon’s management team hear about this development they come up with the bright idea of an exhibition match between the pair.
I know what you’re thinking, this all sounds very silly, and to be honest it is. As well as being rather silly Rocky Balboa is clichéd, cheesy and structurally lopsided - there’s no way it should work as well as it does. But Rocky has never really been about subtlety or nuance, it’s all about heart, and that’s something Rocky Balboa has in abundance. Stallone’s screenplay continually returns to the same themes - follow your dreams, believe in yourself, take the hits and keep on going - and while these ideas may be played out in simplistic fashion, often through impassioned speeches from Stallone, they’re expressed with a sense of integrity and self-belief which is touching to witness.
At the centre of all things Rocky is Sylvester Stallone, and his performance here is one of the main reasons for this movie’s unexpected impact. It’s hard to avoid seeing Rocky as an approximation of Stallone himself; after all he was the young unknown who came out of nowhere to live the American dream in 1976 - he was Rocky - and over the subsequent years Stallone took a number of beatings, with his films being critically derided and often ignored by the public. Now he is seen by many as something of a joke, a dinosaur in a young man’s game, and in Rocky Balboa he seizes his chance to stand up to his critics and show them he’s still got what it takes.
Perhaps Stallone’s affinity with the character is what gives his lead performance such an unaffected air of naturalism and lived-in depth. As an actor, Stallone has always had clear limits, but here he manages to give a tender, expressive performance full of humility and pride. There’s something engaging about that oddly lopsided, hangdog face of his, and his slurring drawl is perfect for the large amount of self-deprecating humour and homespun philosophy which is present in the screenplay. He infuses his part with real emotional weight, and it won’t take long for Rocky to have you in his corner, cheering him on yet again. The rest of the characters are painted in broad strokes, with Mason Dixon and Rocky Jr. suffering from poorly-developed parts; but Stallone gives Burt Young and Geraldine Hughes plenty of room to work alongside him, and they both offer strong support. Young’s performance is particularly enjoyable - full of sardonic humour - and the film benefits from a real sense of affection between Paulie and Rocky.
Rocky Balboa just about gets away with the lethargic pace it employs for its first half, and it’s a relief when the big fight looms on the horizon and the film really springs into life. There’s a classic training montage, with Rocky lifting weights, punching slabs of meat and - of course - running up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. That montage tells us that Rocky is back, and the climactic fight - which takes up most of the film’s final twenty minutes - is as big and bruising as any which have gone before. Extremely well edited, the bout sees past and present colliding as memories of Rocky’s earlier encounters bleed into his titanic battle with Dixon, and the result is a supremely exciting and involving 10-rounder. Of course, you can see how the movie is going to end from pretty much the first frame, but that doesn’t really seem to matter this time.
“What’s crazy about standing toe-to-toe with someone and saying ‘I am’?” Rocky asks when people question his decision to get back in the fight game, and Rocky Balboa emerges as a fine testament to an old man willing to go the distance even if his best years are long behind him. This is a rousing and surprisingly moving underdog tale which overcomes its various flaws through sheer will, relying on the big-heartedness of its story to win the audience over, and it’s ultimately a triumphant return for Sylvester Stallone. He has given a sense of dignity back to his most enduring character, and in doing so he has reclaimed his own reputation. He has fully earned this final round.
Maybe it’s all down to the unexpected success of Finding Neverland - the twee JM Barrie biopic which charmed its way to a number of Oscar nominations in 2004 - or perhaps it has something to do with a young wizard recently making the name Potter very fashionable among both literary and cinematic circles. In truth, it’s hard to see any real reason for this tepid film version of Beatrix Potter’s life to exist. It tells a very uninteresting story in a very uninteresting way, and it’s one of those films which begins to recede in your memory even while you watch it. After the wonderful imagination and heart on show in 1995’s near-flawless Babe, this is a resoundingly disappointing return to directing from Australian filmmaker Chris Noonan.
Miss Potter tells the story of Beatrix (Renée Zellweger), the woman whose tales of anthropomorphised woodland creatures have become some of the best-loved children’s books of all time. Here we see Beatrix taking those first, unsteady steps to fame, and the film opens with her pitching her idea to an pair of publishing brothers who seem less than enthusiastic. But they surprisingly decide to take Potter on, with the intention of palming this silly “bunny book” off on their younger brother Norman (Ewan McGregor), a seemingly naïve young man who is trying to break into the business. Norman sees much more in The Tale of Peter Rabbit than his older brothers do though, and soon enough he starts to see something in the author herself, with a romance quickly blossoming. However, this relationship greatly disappoints Potter’s parents, who can’t bear the idea of their daughter marrying a tradesman.
The conflict between Beatrix and her parents over Norman’s suitability as a husband is just about the only hint of drama in this vapid picture, and even at 92 minutes Miss Potter feels rather bereft of incident. Frankly, the life of Beatrix Potter isn’t the most riveting story ever told - she came from a wealthy family, wrote some best-selling books, became even more wealthy, and then retired to the countryside. Perhaps recognising the paucity of drama in this tale, Miss Potter’s writer Richard Maltby Jr. tries to focus on the chaste romance between the central pair, but this resolutely uninteresting relationship never sparks into life, and there’s no real emotional impact when tragedy strikes.
But the biggest problem Miss Potter faces is an unfortunate case of miscasting in the central role, with Renée Zellweger completely out of place as the writer. Her horribly mannered performance is full of self-consciously ‘cute’ tics and gestures, and the usual Zellweger caveats also apply here. Her lines are all delivered in that croaky, whispery tone of voice; and she is constantly pulling faces, squinting and grimacing as if she has just swallowed a mouthful of vinegar. Distractingly, the woman who have been perfect for the part is often standing right next to Zellweger, with Emily Watson bringing charm and wit to her role as Norman’s sister and Potter’s closest friend. One can only imagine how much more palatable the film would have been if she had been cast as the titular character.
Beyond the lead, however, there are some choice pieces of character acting on show here. Ewan McGregor is funny and likeable as the rather timid Norman, and it’s good to see him on such engaging form after a series of underwhelming displays. There is also fine support from Barbara Flynn and Bill Paterson as Potter’s parents, with the magnificent facial hair sported by Paterson proving particularly entertaining (it’s a pretty great movie for facial hair all round). Another performance of note comes from Matyelok Gibbs as the old woman who acts as Beatrix’s silent, unsmiling chaperone; in the film’s first half she’s a constant presence in the background of the action, often providing some fine deadpan comedy with her reactions to Norman’s courtship of Beatrix.
But we can only derive so much pleasure from fun performances, and the lack of substance to Miss Potter is ultimately wearing. Chris Noonan’s handling of the story is mostly unadventurous, allowing the beautifully-shot countryside to do all the work, but he does inject one or two brief flourishes into the film. At a couple of moments in Miss Potter the characters Beatrix is drawing seem to come to life on the page, wiggling their noses and hopping about, and this touch pays dividends in a neat scene later in the picture; when tragedy has affected Beatrix’s life and her cartoons start to run away from the shadow of death as she tries to draw them. This is the only moment in the movie which feels fresh, and this brief element of darkness comes as a welcome break from the insufferably sweet goings on elsewhere. Unfortunately, the gambit of allowing Beatrix’s creations to move about also leads to the writer admonishing them for doing so - and the sight of the character saying “Peter, stop that!” or “Flopsy, behave” only serves to make Miss Potter look a little, well, potty.
Miss Potter drifts by painlessly enough for a while, but it loses any semblance of forward momentum in the final third, with endless scenes of Beatrix wandering around the Lake District and buying up various pieces of land which she later donated to the National Trust. The film drizzles to a close and only leaves one wondering what the point of it all was. Sure, Beatrix Potter’s books have delighted generations of children, and she did great preservation work for the National Trust; but does every famous person automatically deserve to have their life played out on screen, even when their story is as bland and incident-free as this? Miss Potter may please those filmgoers who enjoy pretty, undemanding movies which don’t spring any surprises, but this empty biopic left me cold; and anyone looking for a Potter to provide a bit of fun at the cinema should probably just wait for Harry.
Forest Whitaker stars as notorious Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland. Actually, that’s not strictly true - he doesn’t star in the film, he dominates it. With his bulky frame and softly-spoken manner, Whitaker has often been cast as a gentle giant in the past; and even when he does play a villain - such as in David Fincher’s Panic Room - he’s usually a conflicted one who often has an attack of conscience which turns him around. In The Last King of Scotland, conscience doesn’t come into it. The actor completely embodies Amin, giving a performance which is charismatic, explosive and terrifying; and the brilliance of Whitaker’s central turn always demands the viewers’ full attention, even if the film around him is too maddeningly uneven to ever exert the same kind of power.
The Last King of Scotland is an adaptation of Giles Foden’s semi-fictional novel which tells the story of a Scottish doctor’s bizarre relationship with Idi Amin. After two fantastic documentaries which used adventurous recreational techniques to illuminate their subject matter, Kevin Macdonald has made the natural progression to narrative features, and under his guidance The Last King of Scotland emerges as an fairly entertaining political thriller which struggles to bring its disparate elements (biopic, comedy, horror, thriller) together in a satisfying way.
The film opens in 1970, with Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy) celebrating his graduation and looking ahead to his future as a doctor. But a life working alongside his domineering father hardly appeals, and on a whim Nicholas pulls out a globe, spinning it while closing his eyes and repeating the words “wherever it lands, you go. Wherever it lands, you go”. The young doctor actually cheats - dismissing the first choice of Canada and allowing himself a second spin - and he seems much more satisfied when he finds himself staring at Uganda. Nicholas is looking for fun, adventure and a step into the unknown, and the mysterious African nation certainly fits that bill. How different things would have been if he stuck to his first choice.
Fast-forward a few months, and Nicholas has arrived in Uganda to help out at a small mission with a doctor (Adam Kotz) and his attractive wife (Gillian Anderson). He has also arrived slap-bang in the middle of a major turning point in the country’s history, with Idi Amin leading a military coup against Prime Minister Milton Obote, much to the delight of the Ugandan people. Soon, Nicholas gets to watch Amin in action - being present at one of his rousing speeches - and then a chance encounter on a country road sees the young Scotsman treating Amin’s hand after a car accident. The general is hugely impressed by Nicholas’ decisive and ballsy attitude, and his ability to maintain control in a hectic, tense situation; and he decides this is the kind of man he needs to have around him. Nicholas is offered the chance to become Idi Amin’s personal physician and - after a short stay at the general’s opulent home - he gratefully accepts.
The odd relationship between this unlikely couple is the motor which drives The Last King of Scotland’s best moments. Amin seems to sense some sort of kinship with his new doctor, and he quickly draws him into his inner circle, asking him for his thoughts on various issues and even allowing him to act as a proxy during a meeting with Austrian officials. When they’re together Amin is often avuncular and charming, and a sense of trust grows between the pair until Nicholas is positioned as one of his most important advisors. For Nicholas, things couldn’t be better: he lives a life of luxury, drives a fast car and has gorgeous women in thrall to him; but he foolishly allows his roving eye to drift towards one of Amin’s three wives (Kerry Washington), and as he gradually realises the extent of his boss’s crimes he finds it almost impossible to extricate himself from the messy situation he has found himself in.
One of the most interesting decisions The Last King of Scotland makes is to have the central drama play out between two characters who do nothing to earn our sympathy or affection. One the one side we have a cold-blooded dictator and mass-murderer, and on the other we have a young man who is arrogant, cowardly, and often downright stupid. Nicholas is a self-serving creep who begins working in Uganda with some vague intention of doing good, but his head is easily turned by the wealth and status on offer, and when he finally acts in the second half it’s purely out of a desire to save his own skin, to pull himself out of the trouble he has brought on himself. It proves to be something of an obstacle for the film to allow this figure - effectively the audience’s surrogate - to be such an dislikeable fellow; and this curious dynamic is perhaps a reason why The Last King of Scotland never really gripped me in spite all of the things it does so well.
And the film does indeed do a lot of things well. Anthony Dod Mantle’s excellent cinematography gives the picture an exotic, burnished sheen which adds to its visceral impact; the editing is sharp and lively; and Macdonald proves adept at handling both the large-scale crowd scenes as well as the more intimate moments between Amin and Nicholas. But the film’s screenplay, by Peter Morgan and Jeremy Brock, is problematic. It lacks depth, and much of its contrived plotting slots together in an all-too-neat fashion. In particular, the film’s climax coincides with the Entebbe raid of 1976, but are we really supposed to believe that Nicholas has been with Amin for five years? Nothing in the film backs this up, and the compression of events into what feels like little more than a few months undermines the story‘s plausibility.
Nevertheless, The Last King of Scotland always had my attention even while it never grabbed my nerves, and the cast play a big part in the film’s appeal. At the core of everything is Whitaker, delivering a complex, multifaceted performance which fully lives up to the awards-season hype. In his first scene Amin delivers a speech to his adoring public saying “I may wear the uniform of a general, but in my heart I am a simple man”, and as he promises to make Uganda a great nation you really sense his firm belief in what he preaches. But as The Last King of Scotland progresses we are treated to a fascinating depiction of the corrupting influence of power, and Whitaker’s portrayal is mesmerising. It’s a display which exhibits charm and humour, but as Amin grows increasingly paranoid and volatile Whitaker’s performance becomes genuinely chilling, as he uses that huge physique to stunningly intimidating effect.
It’s hard for the other actors to escape from the shadow cast by this performance, and while they mostly do a sterling job I found myself missing Whitaker whenever he wasn’t the centre of attention. James McAvoy gives a solid turn as the cocky doctor who realises only too late the scale of Amin’s tyranny, and his character’s development is well mapped-out even if it’s never as affecting as it aims to be. Elsewhere, the supporting cast are uniformly fine. Simon McBurney (so enjoyable in last year’s Friends With Money) is great here as an snide British official who tries to take advantage of Nicholas’ unique position, and David Oyelowo brings dignity to his role as a doctor tired of the chaos surrounding him. As the two women in Nicholas’ life, Kerry Washington and Gillian Anderson are both impressive, with Anderson’s role proving small but significant. She is the kind of doctor Nicholas lacks the will or integrity to be, and she seems to see right through this naïve and reckless young man as soon as she sets eyes on him.
The Last King of Scotland lurches into thriller mode in its final third, with Macdonald struggling to change gears smoothly, and there are a few tense (as well as horrifically violent) moments in this climactic section, but the pat finale pretty much sums up the movie. This is nothing more than an uneven, implausible but decent little thriller which hits all the right notes without ever doing anything particularly special. However, the whole enterprise is elevated a couple of notches by an extraordinary central performance, and for that alone it should be seen. In truth, it might ultimately prove to be one of those electrifying pieces of acting which is almost too good for the film containing it - you simply can’t take your eyes off Whitaker when he’s on screen, and you can’t stop thinking about him when he’s not.
It has been a strange couple of years for Mel Gibson. Not too long ago he was known mainly as a reliable leading man and an Oscar-winning director, but now he seems to have reinvented himself as a professional controversy magnet, a man whose every action is guaranteed to grab headlines. The main catalyst for this shift in Gibson’s public persona was his 2004 film The Passion of the Christ, an Aramaic-language depiction of Jesus’ final hours which drew criticism for its extreme levels of violence and anti-Semitic undertones. That second accusation gained even more substance earlier this year when Gibson’s drunken rant at police officers appeared to make his prejudices clear in no uncertain terms. All of this has rather overshadowed the fact that Mel Gibson’s latest film as a director is one of the more interesting - if frustrating- American offerings of the year.
So what are we to make of Mel’s Apocalypto now? Well, it’s certainly a far better film than his awful The Passion of the Christ, and thankfully the director’s prejudices are a little less prevalent this time around (one unfortunate lapse into Holocaust imagery aside). But it’s another, equally troubling aspect of Gibson’s personality which casts its shadow over this film and ultimately proves damaging to the whole project, and that’s the director’s seemingly insatiable bloodlust.
Does any director depict cinematic violence with quite as much relish as Mel Gibson? After The Passion of the Christ one would have thought Gibson would have had enough of the red stuff for a while, but instead he seems determined to ramp it up to 11. Apocalypto contains all manner of beheadings, throat-slittings, stabbings and impalements; and Gibson finds ever more creative ways to make his audience flinch. If you’ve ever wondered what a Jaguar tearing a man’s face off would look like, then here it is in all its glory. If you like the idea of one man pulling the heart out of another’s chest while it’s still beating, Gibson shows it again and again. If you’ve ever wanted to see a pregnant woman beat a monkey to death (and really, who hasn’t?), then Apocalypto is the film for you.
The relentlessly brutal nature of the violence is initially off-putting, then numbing, and finally rather comical, with a blood-spurting head wound provoking some laughter at the screening I attended. There’s nothing wrong with a filmmaker showing us the savage acts which these people undeniably indulged in, but you need balance, you need occasional flashes of subtlety to offset the overall bluntness, and Gibson never knows when enough is enough. Subtlety, sensitivity and grace are directorial tools which Gibson doesn’t seem to have access to, and his no-nonsense style grows wearying as the body count escalates. His unwavering concentration on the various ways human flesh can be mutilated undermines the laudable ambitions of Apocalypto, and that’s a real shame, because there’s a great movie in here somewhere.
Apocalypto is ostensibly the story of the decline and fall of the Mayan civilisation some time in the early 16th century, and it revolves around a man named Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood). He has a beautiful wife (Dalia Hernandez), who is pregnant with their second child, and life appears to be pretty good in the small village which he calls home. There are regular hunts - the film opens with a breathless chase through the jungle which ends with the slaughter of a tapir - and a lot of genital-based humour at the expense of his friend Blunted (Jonathan Brewer) who is having trouble conceiving a child, much to the chagrin of his wife’s cranky mother (cock jokes and mother-in-law jokes clearly tickle Gibson’s funny bone).
But the good times can’t last, and Jaguar Paw already feels a sense of unease after meeting survivors of a nearby village which was ravaged by some unknown assailants. A few nights later, his own village comes under attack from a group of savage Mayans - scarily clad in various masks, bones and tattoos - and Jaguar Paw just about has time to hide his wife and child down a nearby well before he is caught and led away with a number of other captives to a seemingly inevitable death.
This is where Apocalypto begins to get interesting. The journey which the terrified prisoners are led on, across raging waters and precarious mountain paths, is spectacularly depicted, and the brilliance of Apocalypto’s production design, makeup and casting makes this film feel like an unnervingly accurate recreation of the Mayans’ world. The hundreds of extras display intricate body art and have various bone piercings adorning their faces; and as in The Passion, Gibson has his cast speaking in a dead dialect - Yucatec Maya this time - with the mostly inexperienced leading cast giving guileless, authentic performances. The digital cinematography throws up some beautiful images (even if it does seem oddly flat sometimes) and James Horner adds a brilliant, moody score which plays a considerable part in the film’s partial success. Like Terrence Malick’s recent masterpiece The New World, this truly is an astonishing and evocative realisation of a particular time and place.
Eventually, the terrified Mayans are led to the city where the women are auctioned off and the men are painted blue in preparation for their sacrifice. They are led to the top of an enormous temple, and as they climb the stairs they can see a steady stream of decapitated heads plummeting down the other side. The High Priest is there, ready to spill blood in an attempt to appease their gods, and he begins pulling the hearts out of the prisoners’ bodies before their heads are removed and thrown towards the growing pile below. Jaguar Paw is on the altar, seconds from death, when the Priest’s hand is stayed by a solar eclipse (one of the script’s many uses of deus ex machina) and, with the sun god satisfied, the rest of the prisoners are dismissed, ready to be disposed of elsewhere. The prisoners are used for target practice in a secluded spot behind the temple, but Jaguar Paw manages to escape from his captors’ clutches, and he races into the jungle with an angry group of savages on his tail.
Apocalypto then becomes a chase movie and, unfortunately, that’s pretty much all the second half of the movie amounts to. It’s as if Gibson’s ambitions gradually shrink the further the film progresses, and after the far-reaching splendour of the first half, we’re left with just one long pursuit through endless undergrowth as the film’s climactic act. That’s not to say it isn’t exciting; Gibson effectively manages to build up a compelling sense of tension in many places, and the movie often develops a thrilling kinetic rush as Jaguar Paw hurtles through the trees, encountering a real jaguar, a waterfall and quicksand among the film’s bewildering number of cliff-hangers. But the chase gets repetitive, frequently stretching plausibility, and the climax Gibson offers at the end of it all is weak.
“A great civilisation is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within” is the Will Durant quote which Gibson uses to open the film, and it’s a quote which could be seen as offering some sort of cautionary moral to this story of a decadent society brought to its knees, but it could also act as a metaphor for the film as a whole. Apocalypto destroys itself through Gibson’s inability, or unwillingness, to widen his focus beyond man’s capacity for violence; he recreates a whole world in breathtaking detail, but then he retreats into the jungle, preferring to subject us to a few more scenes of bloodshed and pain. Apocalypto squanders its grand potential somewhere in that dense jungle, and it ultimately tells us a lot more about Mel Gibson than it does about Mayan civilisation.
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