Kings of the Sun

Hi Aki,

Tonight we watched Kings of the Sun a 1963 epic starring Yul Brynner and George Chakiris.

The story is set about 1500 years ago or so. The Mayans of the Yucatan are overrun by rival kingdoms from western Central America who have mastered metal smelting. The Mayans have only wood and stone weapons and are slaughtered. The king and his last surviving priests and warriors realize that their human sacrifices to the gods have not worked, the gods are angry, and they decide to flee.

They go to the coast, to a fishing village. There the village chief refuses to allow his fishermen to sail the warriors away unless the king agrees to marry the chief’s daughter. Angry, proud, King Balam agrees that if they reach the mythical shores to the north across the great sea, he will marry Ixchell the chief’s daughter.

They are about to take sail, but the priest says they should make a sacrifice first. King Balam resists, confessing that he never liked sacrifice. But before it can go farther, the enemy king arrives, and they must flee to the waves. The enemy king, Una Kell, swears he too will build boats and follow them and kill Balam.

Now Balam and his people and the villagers are long at sea, and there is no wind, and many want to turn back. They say Una Kell only wants Balam, and why not give him to them? Others call for a human sacrifice, and say the voyage was doomed because there was no sacrifice. But even then the chief’s daughter Ixchell sees birds, and they find land.

They have come from Chichenitza on the Yucatan, and the movie gives us a map of where they might have gone, but do not say whether it is Florida, Louisiana, Texas – it is somewhere along the gulf coast though.

In the new land, again the priest wants to make sacrifice. Balam announces that he will marry Ixchell and commands the priests to prepare all the necessary rituals.

Meantime they are building a new village, huts, buildings, and a pyramid on which to make the sacrifices. It does not rain, but the king says they should channel a nearby stream and irrigate their crops, and he takes the workers off the pyramid to build a dam and irrigation channels.

Meantime, there is a tribe of Plains Indians who are living nearby. They find one of the lost ships of the Mayans, that washed up on the shore. The chief, Black Eagle, and one of his warriors, go to search for the invaders. Black Eagle intends to capture one of the invaders and bring him back so they can learn who these people are, then drive them away.

Black Eagle finds the new village of the Mayans. He spies on King Balam, and somehow they all speak the same language, so he knows Balam is king. A good captive to take back. Black Eagle leaps from a tree and attacks, and he and Balam fight, sword against tomahawk. Black Eagle is about to win, when the Mayan warriors arrive and take him captive.

The priest is overjoyed. What better sacrifice than a man who is from this new land? The gods here will be happy with his blood. But Black Eagle has been wounded by the soldiers, and so he must be nursed back to health before he is sacrificed.

Black Eagle resists all help, until beautiful Ixchell comes to heal him. Over the days of his recuperation, Black Eagle falls in love with Ixchell, and she responds. She has not yet wed the king, and Balam is proud, and so is Ixchell, and the fact that Balam was forced to swear to marry her is a wall between them. she’s waiting for him to say he really does want her as a woman, and he’s waiting for her to say she likes him as a man.

But Black Eagle is not afraid to say he wants Ixchell, and this touches her.

When Black Eagle is healed, he is given robes of ceremony and told his honor is to be given to the gods with the prayers of the Mayans. Meanwhile he is like a god himself, and he may have any maiden he wants. He says ‘I want Ixchell!’

The king must tell Ixchell that Black Eagle chose her. She says she knows. But Balam wanted Ixchell to say, ‘I wish he had picked someone else’ and Ixchell wanted Balam to say ‘I wish you didn’t have to go.’ Neither does, so again they are apart.

Ixchell goes to Black Eagle, but Black Eagle only says that he asked for her to tell her how much he hates her and all her people, and sends her away.

The day of the sacrifice, Black Eagle refuses to lie down on the sacrificial stone willingly. They may kill him, but he will fight them. In answer, Balam says that he will not sacrifice Black Eagle, and asks him to go to his tribe and seek peace between their peoples. Black Eagle sets out. And the priest, sure in his heart the gods need blood, sacrifices himself.

Black Eagle talks his people into agreeing to live in peace with the Mayan and learn from each other. But Balam and Black Eagle get into a fight over Ixchell, and Black Eagle decides to lead his people away. They usually wander, and he’s sick of these Mayans. Ixchell’s heart belongs to Balam, he sees, so there’s no point in staying. He goes with his tribe.

But now Una Kell and his warriors arrive in their ships, and attack the Mayans. Black Eagle and his people hear the war horns and he decides he must go back and fight at the Mayans’ side.

The Mayans are overwhelmed by the superior metal swords, and make a last stand on top of the pyramid. Then Black Eagle and his warriors arrive. The battle turns, and Una Kell’s men are killed. On top of the pyramid Balam kills Una Kell himself. But Black Eagle is wounded fatally in the fight, and carried on top of the pyramid.

Under the guidance of Black Eagle, King Balam tells his people they can go back home now, but he will stay in this new land. But he will never take up sacrifice again. True sacrifice lies in what people give up in their daily struggle, there’s no need for blood.

Black Eagle tells Balam they have both learned from each other, and that Ixchell belongs to him. Then he dies.

The people stay with Balam, and he and Ixchell will be happy together.

The end.

The print they made the dvd from was in excellent shape, beautiful colors. A big budget with hundreds of extras, big battle scenes.

About the most interesting thing artistically were the scenes in the hut where Black Eagle was recovering. These were shot in a very noir way, with angular black shadows cutting everywhere, dense pools of black and highlights on parts of the actors while other parts were in shadow. These effects are not easy to achieve in color stock, the dp did a good job on these soundstage sets.

Yul Brynner worked out and got in fine shape for the role, and they dyed his body dark; he doesn’t quite look Indian, but pretty good. And he knew how to strut and carry himself like a king.

George Chakiris is rather weak as Balam, but he’s as strong as George Chakiris ever got.

The girl who played Ixchell sounded english in some scenes, I’m not familiar with her.

The director is J Lee Thompson, and this was part of his high water mark as a director. He directed the original Cape Fear among others. This is a sort of a film that is less directed than generaled, with all the extras, the huge sets, the sweeping panavision shots. it’s put together well, but the point of the movie is a liberal one of secular humanism, that religion is less important than the way we live our daily lives. And the plains Indian is not really the one to deliver this message.

The opening scenes are shot at real pyramids, uncovered and restored, somewhere in Mexico. I get the idea that somebody on vacation saw these pyramids and thought it would be a good starting point for an epic.

The other interesting thing is that the Mayans put up a stockade fence about their new village, so it’s a bit like a cavalry outpost against the indians, with a bit of the western flavor, which is strange indeed.

Elmer Bernstein did the music. This was all done for the Mirisch company, and I think Mirisch (beside Billy Wilder movies) had done Magnificent Seven – again with Yul Brynner. This may have been a try to recapture that magic.

I wish I had seen it on a huge screen. I’m sure it would be better so.

The film seems short at 108 minutes. I’m sure it was a financial flop – I’d never heard of it before – a longer original version might have been released, then when it failed a shorter version was made with television in mind. But I don’t see much in the story that is missing.

(written around 1 March 2009)