Well here's a piece that finds the secret teaching of Apocalypto, tying it to today's feast. Here's the culture the film portrays:
Month after month, year after year, in temple after temple, sacrificial victims came down the long roads leading to the pyramids, climbed the steep steps to the top of the platforms, were bent backwards over convex slabs of stones. An immense knife with a blade of midnight black volcanic glass rose and fell, gutting the victim open. His or her heart was torn out while still beating and held up for all to see, while the ravaged body was kicked over the edge of the temple where it bounced down the steps a hundred feet below. This scene is graphically portrayed in Apocalypto.My mom used to read us the juicy portions of Prescott's Conquest of Mexico with a little too much glee, I thought, when she was preparing her history lessons. The obsidian knife of Aztec sacrifice has traumatized me enough in my childhood imagination; I don't need to see it again. However:
One of the last scenes in the film is the sight of the ships of Hernando Cortez of Spain -- black crosses on their sails -- landing on the beaches. What most viewers of Apocalypto probably do not know is that Cortez lands on Good Friday, April 22, 1519. This begins a remarkable story that culminates with Our Blessed Mother's appearance to St. Juan Diego on December 12, 1531.
Gibson's made rumblings about his latest being an anti-Bush flick, but perhaps it's really an Ann Coulter flick --remember her original remedy for the war on terror? Perhaps the secret teaching is that Christianization is a good thing.
