When Mel Gibson made Apocalypto I don’t think women were his target audience. It’s a very barbaric movie. But those women who did endure its horrific violence were treated to a hidden gem of a birth scene – and a waterbirth no less.
In Maya A Safe Birth Is The Least Of Your Worries
If you don’t like bloody violence and brutal murder then Apocalypto is not the movie for you. Set during the 16th century Mayan civilization of central America, it tells the story of a group of assailants who capture and sell jungle tribes for city priests to use in blood sacrifices. The gods apparently wanted a lot of blood to arrest the rampant diseases introduced by the Europeans.
During one raid on a jungle village, a young hunter hides his son and pregnant wife in a deep, vertical cave prior to his capture. The movie focuses on the plight of this hunter and his efforts to be reunited with his family before the rains arrive and flood the cave. Actually drowning can be considered a joyous way to go when compared to the grim alternatives served up by Apocalypto.
But What About The Birth Scene?
The rains have started to fall and the cave is quickly filling with water. What a terrible time to go into labour. True to life it always happens at the most inconvenient moment. At least it makes for a great birth pool.
As the video clip shows, this movie birth scene is remarkably good. A small amount of blood is dispelled into the water, the cord is intact, the baby swims to the surface before being scooped up by the mother. Not sure how they did it – but Mel Gibson sets a great example. What a shame its tucked away in such a barbaric movie.
Room for improvement? Like most movie birth scenes labour is a very brief affair. I wish I could educate my clients to reliably pop them out this quickly. The birth of the placenta is omitted, which is forgivable in this movie as the birth is incidental. It’s not so forgivable in some of the movies where the birth is the climax.
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maybe this comes from seeing all his children be born? He has 7 of them (well 8 now). I’d say this was seemingly real. The mother wasn’t acting crazy and out of control. Which in her situation, I’d give her EVERY RIGHT to!
Plus kudos for the child being on her shoulders during it. Hurrah to motherhood!
I can’t wait to see which one is next.
Yes it is quite hard to find fault. Even looking at it closely frame by frame is seems realistic to me (not that I’m an authority). You can actually see what looks like vernix on the baby’s leg. I thought it might have been footage of an actual water birth, but the Mayan woman’s clothing is visible throughout the scene. It seems too good for CGI. I wonder how it was done?
I have listened to the director’s commentary and they made absolutely no comment during the entire scene!
What is most remarkable is how they put such a convincing birth scene is a movie that is not about birth, when those movies that are about birth invariably have truly absurd birth scenes. Is it because it’s a natural situation so they weren’t led down the path of adhering to conventional birth cliches to meet mainstream expectations? The exact same thing happens in the movie Children of Men.
Hmmm. . .that WAS dramatic! For sure, any normal woman would have made the older child cling to the bloody pole by himself while she pushed out a sibling for him
Didn’t know Jellikin was allowed into this sacred den of femininity–what’s the world coming to?
Please God let me push my next baby out without a toddler on my shoulders. Knowing Lucy, she would love to have prime position as close to me as possible (no one show her this clip!) LOL
Could you imagine a pool that you could stand up in and you would be up to your neck in water? what a nightmare of logistics for getting it prepared.
Jelikin is getting out of control with frame by frame break down. He really needs a job.
I remember thinking that birth scene was great when I saw the movie, but had totally forgot about it! I feel like it had to be a real birth that was edited to look like it happened in the movie scene.
That is a pretty good birth scene. umbilical cord and everything! I hate how they so often hold up freshly-born babies and the cord is already clamped and cut. I’m shocked how many people have no idea about the placenta needing to be born at all – I even had a mama once, pregnant with her second baby who, when I told her about lotus birth thought it means the baby would be connected to the mama till the cord breaks off. When I explained that the placenta comes out after the baby, she asked “but how do you get it back in again afterwards?”
*facepalm*
thanks to the wonders of movies, epidurals and strategic sheeting, this woman had never seen or felt her baby being born, despite being awake for the event, and never noticed them removing her placenta.
I’d love to see more placentas in movie births.
Get jellikin working on the Conehead movie birth. It’s so cute. Dan Ackroyd passes out when the coneheaded child comes out. That would be a fun one. Gloria
Just to correct you on the Conehead movie, the doctor asks Dan Ackroyd if he would like to cut the cord. Dan Ackroyd then bites the cord and I believe the doctor passes out.
Hi
Love your site! I saw this movie & was pregnant with my second at the time. As you can imagine it stayed in my mind very clearly! I’ve had two wonderful homebirths (in Christchurch, NZ) & was riveted to this scene when watching the movie – but did keep thinking the water would be too cold!!
Another funny/interesting homebirth scene is in the movie ‘Big Mama’s House’ (no. 1 not the sequel). Big mama is the local midwife, but an FBI agent is undercover as her in this scene & has no clue what he’s doing. It’s a quick birth, not particularly realistic, but I have a soft spot for it because it’s a homebirth – even though the paramedics show up after it’s all over. Funny to watch & more positive than most American movie birth scenes I reckon. Keep up all your wonderful work! Anna
Quick Google Search brought me to your site! Thank You for the links!
Lisa,
home waterbirth for your viewing in Barry Munday (2010).
Happy holidays.
V.
This movie was truly barbaric, I watched it quite late on SBS thinking my partner would love it – he did!
The only thing I noticed that was *obviously* fake about that birth scene is that the cord is white and rubbery (no blood) and the baby cries in the same instant the face breaks through the water.
Perhaps a rather cold water birth could do that to you?
Love this blog…