🎬 #144 Conquered From Within.
This week’s two films drop us into civilisations that are crumbling. Being chipped away, by those that are nearby, within the same lands as those who are under threat.
We’re tagging along, while people’s lives are being torn apart, whole ways of life disrupted and changed forever.
Happy choosing, happy viewing
Bry
FILM ONE: APOCALYPTO
2006 Dir Mel Gibson
2 hrs 19 mins
Gibson plunges us into the jungles of South America during the Mayan reign. Where we find that jokes about balls and mother’s in law are still as prevalent and relevant to a bunch of men socialising and working together. Within the first 15 minutes, even though we’re in a distant place in time and space - we immediately identify with this group of villagers, we’re made of the same stuff, want the same things - family, security, community, respect. Until their way of life is disrupted by ferocious pillaging.
That’s when the action starts and it barely relents until the final moments. The motivations of the central character, Jaguar Paw, are as clear as the markings etched into a Mayan temple wall. They’re primal, he needs to survive to get back to his family. He has to protect them at all costs. What’s really amazing about this film, is that we’re witnessing a world rarely seen. But within this rarely glimpsed world is the architecture of an all out action film, like Speed. What’s also amazing is that there are many moments in the film that feel more like science fiction than historical epic. The customs, the costumes, the designs, feel as if from another planet of the Dune universe. It’s deeply, richly realised and a thrillingly different kind of action film.
TL;DR: This is a film that takes us deep into a world rarely depicted on the big screen.
*Available for a small rental fee on Amazon and Apple in the US and ITV X in the UK.
Fact: The cast in the teaser trailer is entirely different from the cast in the finished film.
FILM TWO: NEW ORDER
2020 Dir Michel Franco
1 hr 26 mins
I saw this film fresh from its Grand Jury Prize win at Venice. The premise was super compelling, and it was described as a science fiction / horror thriller, so I was in from the beginning. What’s so impressive is how step by step, beat by beat you’re following along, captured by the unravelling events - then suddenly, as the title suggests, you’re in a whole other world. The insidiousness with which systems are gradually eroded away feels terrifyingly plausible. Like Soderbergh’s take on a global pandemic proved incredibly accurate, down to his impeccable research, this film feels like a glimpse into a future that’s only 2 minutes away.
We open in a friendly upscale wedding, and gradually we’re introduced to the tensions that are creeping in from the edges of the frame. TV news stories, snippets of dialogue between guests, radio reveals - the filmmakers build up a mounting sense of dread, of a threat that then suddenly breaks in from the sides of the frame to engulf the big day. The suddenness yet remarkably ‘logical’ events lead us to a place we could never have imagined when the film began. This is the kind of film that the phrase ‘cautionary tale’ was invented for.
TL;DR: Franco’s film is an amazingly vivid portrayal of a world shifting change of events.
*Available for a small rental fee on Apple and Amazon in the US and the UK.
Fact: Patricia Bernal who plays the mother of Dario Yazbek Bernal's character in the film, is also his real-life mother.