Raleigh Independent Weekly Reviews "Guadalupe" and "Apocalypto"

(Hat tip: Catholic World News)

A Raleigh, NC newspaper compares the movies:

... In Apocalypto, Mel Gibson has a similar fixation with a kind of science-iness, taking surface verisimilitude (such as the tattoos, hair and body art in Apocalypto) to an astounding degree. Gibson also seems to agree with the historical worldview behind Guadalupe in regarding pre-Columbian cultures as, if not inherently violent, then as civilizations where blind elites have spiraled homicidally out of control. Tacitly or not, both films suggest that, no matter what harm they might have done, Conquest and conversion at least put an end to the gruesome violence of a particular pre-Christian lifestyle.

Where the films clearly differ is in their sensibility, and when it comes to religious shock and awe thrillers, the Catholic Church could use more of Gibson's savoir faire. Where Apocalypto doesn't shy away from gore on the open hand, Guadalupe prefers the reaction shot. When Juan Diego shows his radiant tilma to the Bishop, the camera doesn't let viewers participate in the big reveal. Instead, it cuts back and forth between the shaken faces of the witnesses. This is one way to save money on special effects, to be sure, but it also accords with ancient decorum in the matter of how to teach morality through art. However, like the ancients, Gibson understands the lure of showmanship: Deathbeds are just not as much fun to watch as arenas of human blood sport.

What is worth watching in Guadalupe, much like the details of everyday life in Gibson's potboiler, is documentary footage slipped into the modern storyline: Scenes of actual pilgrims on their way to the Basilica, the most visited Marian shrine in the world, a womb-shaped sanctuary where the tilma hangs, and villagers committing feats of daring in the Virgin's name, hanging themselves upside-down from a tall, maypole-like device and letting their bodies spool earthward. That kind of faith is far more contagious than mysticism with footnotes. It's a hobbled faith that needs shoring up by medieval ballyhoo dressed up in the trappings of modern science. Faith is not the stuff promulgated by institutions (or movies perhaps), it is born of the needs and customs of people on the ground. The Jewish character gets it when he explains why he, too, is a Guadalupano: "In Mexico, who isn't?"

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