Apocalypto (2006) by Mel Gibson
“This film is fantastic! It really is a great movie on different peoples’ rights to self-determination. When I see Kouchner, Bernard-Henri Lévy, the right to humanitarian intervention, which is making a comeback, I find it interesting to reaffirm it. In Apocalypto there’s a lot of that, a bit of “OK, right, the Mayan society wasn’t great”, but then with the final shot and the conquistadors, I thought, “yeah, OK, it was a pain before, but now it’s going to be worse.” He ties in with Cecil B. DeMille. It’s an extremely challenging movie, which holds your attention from beginning to end, and I haven’t seen that in cinema for a long time. There’s something amazing about it, which I wouldn’t have dared do myself. But then, that’s the Americans for you: they don’t question anything. There’s actually a great liberty in that. They redo the solar-eclipse thing, do anything they want. I would’ve thought, “That’s been done before, and those poor Mayans are going look like idiots,” and then the solar eclipse works really well; the screenwriter doesn’t think twice. I find that really exhilarating. You make movies, and you’re the king of the world when you do, and I wonder why I don’t take advantage of this right more often. Anything goes, and you might as well go all-out yourself. I really admire that.”

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