IN MEL Gibson's authentic period movie set at the decline of the Mayan kingdom, a Holcane warrior has an eye so swollen he can hardly see. His father, the leader of the ferocious tribe, takes a blade and slices the flesh. Blood pours, the swelling goes down. He can see again. If ever there was a metaphor for Gibson's films, this is it. He bashes us incessantly until our eyeballs burst open to his nightmare vision . . . in this case that modernity has destroyed family life and that we are all slaves to the city. His language is a mishmash of fairytale archetype and Christian symbolism.

His message is forced down our throats in the same way a young warrior is forced in one scene to consume raw tapir testicles. It is enough to make you gag.

Still, Gibson is a thrilling filmmaker. Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), the son of a chief of an idyllic Mayan village, is kidnapped by the Holcane warriors who need sacrifices for the Pontius Pilate-like baying mob in the city. His father's throat is sliced before him. "My son, do not be afraid, " he tells him. Jaguar Paw manages to stash his pregnant wife and son down a well, saving them from rape and murder. He vows to return, and does so in electrifying style.

The film is made entirely in a Mayan dialect. It creates an immersion into the past that feels nothing short of authentic. If you can get over Gibson's moralising, you are in for a kinetic treat.

Miss Potter (Chris Noonan) Renee Zellweger, Ewan McGregor, Emily Watson, Barbara Flynn, Bill Paterson.
Running time: 93 minutes . .

BEATRIX Potter, one of the most successful children's writers of all time, gets this biopic treatment with Renee Zellweger playing her as a jowly, flame-cheeked eccentric who spends a lot of time talking to her creations. For the viewer too, it's a one-sided discussion. Not interested in presenting anything like a complex portrait, director Chris (Babe) Noonan's prefers instead to force feed us candyfloss with a series of happy endings that makes light of her struggles as a Victorian woman. (Potter was also a frustrated botanist who was not allowed work because of her gender, a part of her life neatly elided from Richard Maltby Jr's script. ) A flashback shows young Potter exclaiming that when she grows up, "I shan't marry. I shall draw." So now she's an unmarried thirtysomething, writing and illustrating Peter Rabbit stories in her bedroom. Her parents . . .wealthy London parvenus . . . scold her while publishers tell her there is no market for her work.

Ewan McGregor plays Norman Warne, a bumbling moustachioed publisher who takes on her case, wins her fame, fortune and then falls in love with her only to discover fate has other plans. More frustrated love than frustrated artist.