The land outside my town pours around decaying ranches and rusted cars, past lean cattle dogs and brown men in cowboy hats and torn jeans. My friend, Leo, lives here, lives in a stucco home with a dog the color and texture of the same dry prairie grass he roams.

Leo rides horse next to bull, pitches lariat in the rodeo ring. He cuts a fine figure, his hair sleek and long behind the wind, his body poised to jump from stallion to steer. The only thing that breaks the mold of ancient Navajo warrior is his black plastic-rimmed glasses, the kind you buy at the drug store, one side missing an earpiece. He once roped electrons at Los Alamos, at the great laboratory of atom-smashing death, but gave it up to measure nature three years ago, the month he turned 40.

Leo called me over the weekend.

"Come on, Birdie. Let's go to the movies. I want to celebrate your birthday. 41 is a good year, at least it was for me. We can see that movie about the Mayans."

He spoke with the short staccato syllables of the local Spanish, each word sounding like a gentle question.

"Mel Gibson's movie? Apocalypto? You've got to be kidding."

Leo couldn't see the roll of my eyes, the sad shake of my head. Who wants to see a poem of violence, the glimpse into a troubled man's head?

"Birdie, come on. We're both Native American. It's about our people in a way."

So we went, quarter-Cherokee-mostly-white-chick me in a green velvet dress over black slacks, full-Navajo Leo in head-to-ankle denim. We bought popcorn with extra butter and shared a box of Milk Duds. The theatre echoed with the gentle crunch of our snacks. No other patrons joined us, no others wanted to watch an early evening bloodfest. I watched my friend as he ate. His silver bracelet collected drops of fake butter. He lifted booted feet onto the seats in front of us, and I followed suit. The screen rolled from advertisement to endless preview, finally breaking free. Movie Mayans filmed the screen, grabbed me by the throat.

You've probably read the newspaper reviews, the commentary. You know the movie tells the story of Mayan decadence, of the time just before white men invaded the new world. You've heard the stories of violent death and destruction, the way Mel Gibson filled every five minutes with one horror after another. All of these things are true, are disturbing, are brutal and graphic. The story is simple, a chase, a chase to the death - of simple life, of culture. The hero becomes a cross between Rambo and Macgyver, a lone wounded man forced to march, starved for days, yet he outruns and outfights an entire squad of steady fit warriors.

But something surprised me, caught me off-guard. The movie forced me inside of it, forced me to run alongside the reel itself, to almost smell and taste the civilizations it portrayed, unlike any movie experience I ever had. Leo and I stared in silence, the popcorn forgotten. I became the hero, became the evangelical high priest, the hidden pregnant woman, the scared child. I became them fully, as if I created their thoughts, breathed the subtitles onto the screen with my own vapour.

Leo and I didn't speak much on the long ride home. I don't much care for Gibson, for his meditations on hate, on killing, on racism. But I couldn't hate his movie. I don't know if it was silent cell memory of my ancient ancestors, or if a part of me needed the wash of pain and fury. I don't know. The movie became something other than a movie, became a ride of immersion, some kind of strange baptism.

Leo summed it up best as he walked me to my door.

"Birdie, I can't explain it. How can something on a flat white screen make my heart beat this way? I ride the range every day, and I swear Gibson has, too. It's like he tore up the prairie and grabbed the people around me and tossed them into the mix. You can't see it, but it's there. All of my life was there."

"Yeah, Leo. Mine too. Mine too. All of my life on that screen, my tattoo-running-blood-letting life."

Apocalypto - Directed by Mel Gibson; written (in Maya, with English subtitles) by Mr. Gibson and Farhad Safinia; director of photography, Dean Semler; edited by John Wright; music by James Horner; production designer, Tom Sanders; produced by Mr. Gibson and Bruce Davey; released by Touchstone Pictures. Running time: 138 minutes.

Birdie also blogs at La Pajaro and Beauty Dish.