Dreher on Apocalypto

Just a little bit of the review:

Well, I finally got to see "Apocalypto" yesterday, and let me start by saying that I was wrong about the movie in my earlier comments here. It is a stunning film, and I heartily recommend it to those who can stand some gore. I did look away a couple of times, to be sure, but for most of the film, the violence is profoundly contextualized; I was not prepared for Gibson to show in the faces and reactions of his characters the pain of violence and cruelty.

...In fact, I can't think of a film that is at once so violent and such a protest against violence.

...(I should say too that as an exercise in pure filmmaking, "Apocalypto" is a phenomenal piece of work. I realized at the end that I had just watched a two-hour film about tribal derring-do, filmed in an ancient Indian tongue, and I had been entirely engrossed, as if hardly any time had passed at all. Any filmmaker who can do that is a master. If somebody other than Mel Gibson had made this film, he'd be the toast of Hollywood.)

These are just my random musings a few hours after having seen "Apocalypto." I wanted to make sure to get them down, even if they're disordered, because I'd made such a big deal about how I wasn't going to see the film, and I wanted to say how mistaken I was.

Looks like it will be on my list, soon.