I swear I'm not being paid by the folks who made this but:
Out on DVD in October, it says here.
Woo hoo!
This is what Apocalypto should have been. Never mind the fact that they get the history right in this one, this is in all honesty one of my absolute favourite films, right up there with The Godfather, Goodfellas and that's about it. Shame they had to hang the publicity off the Mel Gibson thing but I guess whatever gets the job done. When it came out they were playing it up as the Mexican Name of the Rose which seems a bit closer in some respects. http://www.theotherconquest.com/
"On November 8, 1519 the Spanish Conqueror Hernando Cortés and his small army rode into the Aztec capital of the vast Mexican Empire, where they were welcomed by the Emperor Moctezuma. Within two years, the Aztec civilization was in a state of orphanage, the survivors having lost their families, homes, language, temples... and Gods
The Other Conquest opens in May 1520 when Topiltzin (Damián Delgado), a skillful Aztec scribe who is one of Moctezuma's illegitimate sons, survives the Massacre of the Great Temple by hiding under a corpse. After the Spaniards leave the sacred site, he finds his people dead, including his mother.
By 1526 Topiltzin is still striving to preserve the cult of Tonantzin, the Aztec Mother Goddess. When a squadron commanded by Captain Cristóbal (Honorato Magaloni) and Friar Diego (José Carlos Rodríguez) discover the clandestine human sacrifice of a beautiful Aztec princess, two incompatible ways of life come face to face... - and violence erupts. Topiltzin manages to escape by making Friar Diego believe he is drawn to the statue of the Virgin Mary that accompanies the Spaniards wherever they go. He is eventually captured and presented to Hernando Cortés (Iñaki Aierra), who has just returned from an ill-fated campaign to Honduras. In an attempt to create a hybrid empire, Cortés has taken Emperor Moctezuma's daughter and heiress, the notorious Tecuichpo (Elpidia Carrillo), as his new mistress and interpreter. She reveals that Topiltzin is her half-brother, and a skeptical Cortés spares the young man's life, but in turn decides to convert him to the new Spanish ways with the aid of Tecuichpo (from now on, Doña Isabel) and Friar Diego. After being subject to a brutal ritual of conversion, Topiltzin (now called Tomás) is confined in the Franciscan Monastery of Our Lady of Light.
Thank you for the info WA, I am looking forward to seeing this one.
Star
It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
-- Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World
"Give us the timber or we'll go all stupid and lawless on your butts". --Redcloud, MTF
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
Er... the background detail is factual - and they really did their research on the people involved - Motecuhzoma's daughter, Malinche etc. The events depicted as they happen to the main character (Topiltzin) were common, as I understand - ie local geezer gets baptised as a monk but still can't quite stop himself longing for the good old days of human sacrifice and things making sense etc. So factual without being biographical I suppose, sort of (I guess) like Roots before everyone realised that Chicken George never really existed (that did happen, didn't it - or did I just imagine it?). The difference between this and Apocalypto is probably the same as the difference between The Godfather and er... New Jack City. Hmm... maybe I mean Goodfellas and New Jack City. Mind you it has that epic feel of The Godfather - as in attention to detail and a fantastic script rather than epic meaning spaceships and CGI dinosaurs.
