Development In Apocalypto

Apocalypto (2006) is a highly entertaining film following the journey of native “Jaguar Paw” and his tribe as their peaceful village is ransacked by a group of Mayans. His tribe is taken to the Mayan city described by one native as a ,“place where earth bleeds”, where he and his tribe become a part of a Mayan sacrifice ceremony. Intriguingly enough, the entire film is in the Yucatec Mayan language with english subtitles and casts native Mayans who had little to no acting experience (Weismantel and Robin 2007). These two aspects certainly give the film a sense of authenticity. Although, the film has been criticized for historical inaccuracies ranging from a poor and overly violent depiction of the Mayan people, the display of a disease which

The story is not entirely based on the idea of development, rather it focuses on Jaguar Paw’s journey to save his pregnant wife and child and escape the Mayan kidnappers. This makes it difficult to draw any parallels between the majority of this film and development. A large portion of this film is an almost drawn out chase scene between Jaguar Paw and the Mayan warriors. While the near death experiences faced by Jaguar Paw as he runs from the Mayans are quite entertaining, this chase encapsulates what seems like more than half of the film. Furthermore, the entire beginning of the film shows a mere day in the life of Jaguar Paw’s tribe with no real sense of anything relating to development. There may be some huge drawn out metaphor about the hunters being hunted and the stages of development going on throughout the duration of this film. Although, this seems like a stretch and it is unlikely that this was Gibson’s intention. This film would have been more useful from the perspective of development if more focused had been placed on the Mayan civilization and the eventual Spaniard colonization. It’s hard to say that this entirety of Apocalypto can be viewed from the perspective of development. Yet, it is certainly worth a watch as it brings up some ideas of development while being immensely engaging and thought