Is that true?"

"Mel, there's a rumor, the word on the street is that you're going to do

a follow-up to the Passion."

"Are you ready to do the sequel...?"

I think he already did.

Hi. I'm Matt and this is Logos Made Flesh.

Ever since its release in 2004, Christians have been

clamoring for a sequel to the Passion of the Christ,

hands down, the bloodiest Christian movie ever made.

"Why did you make this film?

Well, I think there's a tendency for all of us

to take that event for granted.

And cinematically I think it's been sanitized

a fair bit so that it becomes ineffective, ineffectual,

not emotional and I wanted to illustrate the extent of the sacrifice."

Many reviewers were disgusted with the Passion's bloodshed,

calling it an epic snuff film,

but Christians saw in its brutality, God's manifested love for all humanity.

A meaning which Gibson, in the film's opening quotation,

invited audiences to see.

The Passion went on to become the highest-grossing independent and rated R film,

earning 610 million dollars worldwide.

It's not surprising, therefore, to see why Christians want a sequel.

But they've totally missed the one Gibson gave them.

In 2006, Gibson followed the Passion with Apocalypto,

a story which is a continent, culture, and millennium removed from the crucifixion.

Apart from the arrival of the Spanish at the film's end, the story appears to have nothing

to do with Christianity, although just as bloody if not

more bloody than the Passion of the Christ.

Christians understood the Passion's brutality but they could not

swallow Apocalypto's. According to the estimate of one Christian reviewer,

the Passion's "very subject matter - crucifixion - lent itself

to such explicit imagery…”

But concerning Apocalypto's violence, they had to conclude,

The irony is striking since Gibson has gone to great links to connect the two films.

Language

One of the most obvious is in language.

To date, Gibson has directed five films and yet only two,

the Passion and Apocalypto, have been filmed using ancient languages

which few speak or understand today.

Title

The title is also telling. Apocalypto is Greek for "I reveal"

and is related to the Greek word Apocalypse, Revelation,

the last book in the New Testament.

If we consider that the Passion was Gibson's meditation on the Gospels

at the beginning of the New Testament, Apocalypto suggests itself

as a corresponding bookend.

But even more substantial are the many ways Apocalypto echoes the earlier film.

Opening, for instance, like the Passion, with a white text quotation

on a black background from which it fades to a slow

zoom on a wooded landscape.

zoom on a wooded landscape.

who like Jesus are hunted,

captured, and ripped from the forest to

to an agonizing journey,

carrying a beam to a city and a hill of execution

where they're laid on their backs

and pierced through as a sacrifice.

Here, the film also echoes the Passion

in the darkening of the sky.

But here's where the echoes end. The passion is nearly over.

Jesus is taken down from the cross. And in one final scene,

rises from the dead. But Apocalypto goes

on for another half. Jaguar Paw escapes and races

back to save his wife and child in the place where the film began.

There he must confront and kill his enemies, one by one,

before the waters in the well rise too high.

But the arrival of the Spanish distracts the last of his pursuers.

And after rescuing his family, together they seek a new beginning in the forest.

Apocalypto and the Passion are two sides of the same archetypal coin.

The Passion may begin in the Garden of Gethsemane,

but it is, more importantly, an allusion to the Garden of Eden.

The serpent suggests that Jesus is here undergoing the temptation of Adam and Eve.

Whose failure, according to the Bible, cast the mold for every human person.

But Jesus rejects the serpent and thereby begins to break and remake that mold.

He freely surrenders and endures mankind's banishment from garden/the curse of suffering and death,

so that by sharing in our suffering he might share with us his resurrection

and victory over sin. His new humanity.

Thus after death, he rises naked, as Adam and Eve did

before the fall, the symbol of humanities return to the garden.

The Passion isn't just a story of a brutalized man.

It's the story of how the only innocent man suffered to become

the representative of Everyman. And it's Everyman

that Gibson shows us in Apocalypto.

That's why it too begins with an allusion to the Garden of Eden,

seen in the lush foliage of the forest, the happiness and near nudity

of its inhabitants as well as a story echoing Genesis' account

of creation and man's fall.

This is the story of humanity and Apocalypto,

and the city which takes Jaguar Paw and his tribe captive

is the embodiment of man's corruption and fall,

subjugating people and nature in its perpetual quest for more.

The fact that Gibson has pulled the film's opening quote from something

which was originally said of ancient Rome, uggests the film is more

than about one particular society.

And in this pile of bodies, we're shown an allusion to the destruction

wrought by other empires.

In fact, Gibson has said that the film is equally about the destruction wrought

by the United States right now.

And it's in this symbolic city that Jesus repeatedly gives himself,

reversing man's selfish trend.

While some have called the Passion an anti-Semitic film,

it's with and for the Jews that Jesus suffers.

Isaiah 53 is the climax of a much longer passage

in which God promises to return the Jews from their war captivity in Babylon.

And God's servant suffers with Israel in their exile in

Babylon to return them to the promised land.

The fact that the word Passion (to suffer) is closely

related to the word ComPassion (to suffer with) shouldn't be missed.

Jesus isn't just one man suffering.

He is Everyman suffering. And in Apocalypto,

Gibson once again reminds us of Jesus's compassion in the

Passion by comparing and contrasting scenes like these.

Jesus chooses to stand and suffer with those who have no choice but to suffer.

The graphic violence of these films is intended to remind us

of the real world in which real humans actually experience these things.

And the real God who endured nothing less with and for them.

And through his compassion, he returns humanity to the garden.

This there-and-back again plot is central to the bible,

occurring, again and again, representing man's plight

and hope for redemption.

Jaguar Paws second half escape is symbolic of man's

struggle to find salvation in fleeing the selfishness of the city.

Gibson also appears here to be alluding to William Golding's

Lord of the Flies but discussion of that will have to wait for the comments below.

This leads us to the film's end which has been criticized as a

Deus Ex Machina, a plot device whereby a seemingly

unsolvable problem is abruptly resolved by an unexpected

intervention of some new event, in essence, lazy storytelling.

Nothing in the film prepares the audience for the arrival of the Spanish.

But it's important to note that the same was also true of the resurrection

in the Passion of the Christ. While the rest of the film focuses on

Christ suffering, the short resurrection scene at the end of the film

occurs abruptly and appears entirely tacked on.

The film zooms in on Jesus at the beginning and zooms out on his dead body in the end.

The resurrection scene, with Jesus' sideways exit,

is something entirely new.

And that should remind of the true meaning of a Dues Ex Machina.

It originally refers to the convention in ancient Greek tragedy

to hoist gods onto the stage to solve these unsolvable problems.

And in that sense, the Resurrection is precisely that.

It's a Deus Ex Machina in the true sense of the world,

it is humanly speaking utterly unexpected.

To the Mayans, the arrival of the Spanish was totally unexpected,

as strange as aliens landing on the earth.

Or as Gibson here appears to allude, the second coming of Christ.

For Gibson Revelation isn't just something that happens once

It's something that happens again and again.

The one who compassionately suffered with the victim

has now become their oppressor's judge.

Hey, if you liked what you watched here today, I encourage you to watch my

other videos on Mad Max: Fury Road.

Believe it or not, Fury Road and Apocalypto and Passion have a great

deal in common.

Mel Gibson obviously is the original Max and was intended

to play Max in Fury Road, long before he ever had an involvement

with Passion. He had the script, and I am sure these ideas

were bouncing around in his head.

This is what I do. I love making videos that expose the meaning that you might have missed in movies.

I want to give a shout out to Josh, Darren, and Film on the Eyes

for helping support me on Patreon.

If you want to support me, please like, comment, and share.

Check out some of my other videos, and please, by all means, check out my page on Patreon.

f you want to see another contrasting point of view,

I encourage you to check out Renegade interpretation of the Passion of the Christ,

For one that I really agree with,

check out Storyteller's Apocalypto

All the links are in the description below.

And We'll see you next time.[