Apocalypto!

That last post was so depressing, I feel like ending the night with something more light-hearted.

I saw a teaser last night for Apocalypto, Mel Gibson's new movie. I'm pretty excited about it. Believe me, I'm not a Mel Gibson fan. I used to think of him as an unpleasant person with a weird torture fixation. Now I think of him as an unpleasant racist with a weird torture fixation. But the trailer for Apocalypto just blows all of that out of my mind. It's a big budget movie about the Mayan empire. Even if it was produced by Satan, written by Osama Bin Laden and directed by Uwe Boll, I would still have to see it. I do feel a bit bad about putting money in Gibson's pocket, but for recompense I'll donate the ticket price to a humanitarian Jewish organization.

In order to explain... no matter what the message is, the visuals in the movie are demanding that I absorb them further. The actors, almost all indigenous Mexicans, are wearing a wide variety of Mayan dress and also the typical huge piercings. This is going to be a must-see for anyone seriously interested in the world history of jewelry and body adornment. The colors are also striking. I've travelled along some of the Mayan route and seen the large ruins in Mexico -- Chichen Itza and Palenque -- and imagining them fully painted in glorious color was one of my favorite sightseeing activities.

A few years ago I briefly considered going to see that movie Memoirs of a Ho (ahem, excuse me, Memoirs of a GEISHA) just to see the costuming. Ultimately, I couldn't bring myself to do it. There are many Japanese movies that already feature beautiful traditional dress. But can you say the same about the Mayan empire? Visually, the movie seems like a revelation. It's going to be a monster hit in Mexico and very popular with Mexican-Americans too.

Here is an article from the Mexican newspaper La Jornada predicting great success for Apocalypto. It has an especially deranged picture of Mel.