Apocalypto

Wow. That is all I can say after such a movie. To be very honest I do not quite understand where Mel Gibson is coming from with this one. As an aficionado of all things Latin American, it was interesting to see the way he portrayed the Aztecs or Mayans, or any other group who held power prior to the arrival of Cortes. The movie could have represented any one of these, maybe even the Incas though they were not so violent as the group portrayed in the movie.

Pro-life. I don't necessarily see it, although I enjoyed the fact that the protagonist's wife lives in the end, along with their son and newborn (born underwater) child. Justice is served in the movie for one man, and yet the others died so that he might live. I am struggling in all of this to derive the overall message. The actors did a phenomenal job, and the set, or environment if you will was also tremendous. However I cannot take a heart-warming quip from this movie, and maybe I am not supposed to. The only point I can offer is that I kept thinking of the modern tendency to romanticize the past, and modern means whatever time you live in. Man has always done this, because the improvements are so slight and often the losses more visible such that only the losses and failings of the coming years stick in our minds. This movie teaches us that it was not all fun and games in the past, that men had to fight for their food, that plagues ravaged the lands unchecked, that plants were scarce, and that men committed unbelievable atrocities against one another without any recourse to a UN or NATO or what have you? Maybe we should appreciate what we have a little more, instead of always wishing for the past to return. And maybe in this we have discovered the pro-life message. That even in a time of unchecked war and violence between men, life was sought (the man who could not produce children), life was treasured (the newborn baby at the end; the children left unharmed in the village). How can we, in an organized and law-governed society that feigns to uphold human rights murder our own children? Our own livelihood? The greatest and most powerful gift that we (with the aid of a certain Someone) can accomplish on this earth. To give life to another. Life and all the gifts and capabilities it entails, is the most valuable gift God has given us. Anything we try to make with our own hands always turns out lesser in dignity than our very selves. But in begetting a child we produce something equal in dignity. And so I ask: How do we place so much value on the things of this world, and yet not value the very life that allows us to want these things?

Life truly is the greatest gift we have been given.

Thus through the blood, forest, jewelry and varying personalities we have found meaning in Mel's movie. I hope to at some point learn his purposes in creating the film, however if he started the talk about it being pro-life, I do not think we are too far off in these observations and conclusions.

May we all do what we can to preserve the sanctity of life, not by yearning for yesterday or dreaming about tomorrow, but instead by living this very moment and seeking to begin a new chapter in our treatment of human life.