Review of "The Mission"(1986)

LIBERTY UNIVERSITY

“THE MISSION” - A REVIEW

A PAPER SUBMITTED TO DR. DANIEL SHEARD IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE COURSE CHHI 657

LIBERTY BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

BY ELKE SPELIOPOULOS

DOWNINGTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA SUNDAY, APRIL 8, 2012

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 1 THE STORY................................................................................................................................... 2 THEMES OF THE MOVIE............................................................................................................ 4 MISSIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF COLONIAL EXPANSION ................................................. 5 MISSIONARY STRATEGY DEPICTED IN THE FILM ............................................................. 5 OTHER ASPECTS OF MISSION HISTORY ............................................................................... 6 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................... 6 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................... 7

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INTRODUCTION The 1986 movie, The Mission, directed by Roland Joffé and headlined by such great names in acting as Jeremy Irons, Liam Neeson and Robert De Niro, won the Palme d'Or award at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival, the Golden Globe for Best Original Score and Best Screenplay in 1987, and the Oscar for Best Cinematography in 1987. In addition, it was nominated and won a number of other awards, including a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars.1 The movie revolves around 18th century Spanish Jesuits who are trying to protect a remote South American Indian tribe after Portugal is granted rights to a formerly Spanish area, putting the tribe in danger of being subjected to pro-slavery Portugal and its military forces. The impact of this movie has been measurable, not just as seen by the number of awards the movie has received, but also by the number of mentions. A casual search for “’The Mission’ Jeremy Irons” returns 689 search results on Liberty’s Online Library page2. Google delivers about 145, 000 hits3 when searching for the same terms. It is clear the movie had an impact on those who viewed it. Yet does it depict the historical background accurately, and in which light does it set Christian mission? The Mission allows its viewers to understand the difficulty of mid18th century missions in the light of political currents. 1

IMDb, Awards for The Mission, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091530/awards (accessed April 7, 2012).

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Liberty University, Online Search, http://liberty.summon.serialssolutions.com/search?s.q=%22The+Mission%22+%22Jeremy+Irons%22 (accessed April 8, 2012). 3

Google Search, https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ie=UTF8&ion=1#hl=en&sclient=psyab&q=%22The+Mission%22+%22Jeremy+Irons%22&oq=%22The+Mission%22+%22Jeremy+Irons%22&aq=f&a qi=g1gv3&aql=&gs_l=hp.3..0j0i15l3.173l542987l0l543658l15l11l0l0l0l0l269l1651l2j6j3l11l0.frgbld.&pbx=1&bav=on.2, or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=87c6230bd8e448f1&ion=1&biw=1366&bih=600 (accessed April 8, 2012).

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THE STORY The Mission tells the story of a mid-18th century priest, Father Gabriel, played by Jeremy Irons, who seeks to start a mission in a remote area of South America among the Guaraní in order to convert them to Christianity. This community lives above the menacing and dangerous Iguazu Falls. The tribe’s encounter with Christianity has not been an easy one. The rejection of this intrusion is exemplified in the first scene as the Guaraní send a priest to his death down the falls while tied to a cross. When Father Gabriel makes the journey to the Guaraní, the scene seems to repeat itself, yet by playing his oboe, he captivates the Guaraní with his music, and they allow him to live. The slaver and mercenary Rodrigo Mendoza, played by Robert De Niro, is seen capturing natives and bringing them back to a nearby plantation, the one of the Spanish governor Cabeza. It is here that Mendoza realizes that his fiancée is in love with his younger brother Felipe whom he kills in a duel in anger. While Cabeza acquits him of murder, Mendoza is pained by what he has done and slips into depression. Father Gabriel, who visits Mendoza, charges him to seek penance for what he has done. Mendoza seeks to find it by carrying a bundle of heavy armor up the falls to the territory of the Guaraní. When he finally reaches their territory, he finds forgiveness from the ones who should hate him for trying to enslave them and is overcome with emotions because of the acceptance that is being shown him. At the mission, a place of peace and harmony, Mendoza accepts a Bible from Father Gabriel and asks to be ordained. He becomes a priest under Father Gabriel and Father Fielding, played by Liam Neeson. The mission grows and succeeds under the guidance of these men. Yet danger arises from another side: the Spanish, in the Treaty of Madrid of 1750, have given lands in South America to the Portuguese. They, unlike the Spanish, still held to slave trade, thereby endangering the Jesuit missions, or redduciones (“Spanish reducción, from Latin reduction-,

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reductio : a South American Indian settlement directed by Jesuit missionaries”)4. The Portuguese demanded the expulsion of the Jesuits and the closing of the missions. As Fahlbusch and Bromiley write in a brief summary of this period: This secular-religious tension came to a climax during the last quarter of the 18th century following the expulsion of the Jesuits. The minister of Portugal, the marquis of Pombal, falsely accused the Jesuits of supporting a Guaraní rebellion against the Treaty of Madrid (1750) and had them expelled from Portugal and all its American colonies in 1759—a total of 2,200 Jesuits, first from Brazil (1759) and then elsewhere (1769). The expulsion of the Jesuits, who had contributed greatly to the church’s prosperity, brought about a severe shortage of priests and a loss of intellectual and spiritual leadership. As a consequence, many native Americans left the church. The church became increasingly controlled by the state.5 This decision results in an appeal to the Papal emissary Cardinal Altamirano, sent to survey the missions against the new demands from the Portuguese. Under political pressure, Altamirano chooses to close all the missions. Mendoza is outraged and elects to disobey his vows, take up arms again, and defend the mission against Portuguese and Spanish troops. Father Fielding and many of the Guaraní follow his lead. Father Gabriel is against violence and chooses love and ministering to the people “as a priest”, as he also advises Mendoza. He stays behind while the battle rages and celebrates mass. In the final battle, Mendoza and Father Fielding, as well as most of the Guaraní are killed. Father Gabriel leads a procession out of the church with the remaining Guaraní women and children. They are killed by the troops advancing against them, lighting the mission on fire. The end of the movie shows Altamirano meeting with both Cabeza and Portuguese Governor, Don Hontar, asking them whether this slaughter was necessary. Hontar replies in a manner that implies that what happened was unfortunate and at the same time inevitable because 4

Inc Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, eleventh ed. (Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster,, 2003). 5

Erwin Fahlbusch and Geoffrey William Bromiley, The Encyclopedia of Christianity (Leiden, Netherlands: Wm. B. Eerdmans; Brill, 1999-2003), 192.

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"we must work in the world; the world is thus." Altamirano replies, "No, thus have we made the world. Thus have I made it."6 In a final scene, the only survivors, a number of children, leave the mission by boat on the river. THEMES OF THE MOVIE Sin, remorse, renunciation, repentance and struggle all play a part in this epic movie. The former slaver Mendoza, first and foremost, serves as the character giving the viewer an understanding of the terrible burden sin places on a man. At the same time, Mendoza has not lost his old fighting nature, and when the Treaty of Madrid brings the closure of the mission where Mendoza has found peace, he is willing to forego his vows as a priest and take up arms to defend the mission. Father Gabriel, on the other hand, believes that the message of the Bible is love in all things, and that priests are called to live peaceful lives and to lead by their example. He does not see violence as an answer. In the end, both men are dead. Altamirano, Cabeza and Hontar pose difficult ethical questions to the viewer through their discourses and actions. The viewer is left to answer the question whether it is ever right to intervene in another culture to the point that the culture is changed (a question which many believers will answer in the affirmative if they perceive that the Gospel will bring positive changes to the society), but also whether political agendas can be allowed to serve as justifications for actions that affect multitudes of humans to the point of their dispersion or even death. From a Christian perspective, the question that needs to be answered based on Mendoza’s and Gabriel’s differences is whether taking up arms can be the right choice when faced with government restrictions and decisions that one deems unethical. 6

8, 2012).

The Mission, The Film, http://academic.sun.ac.za/forlang/bergman/real/mission/film8.htm (accessed April

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MISSIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF COLONIAL EXPANSION Tucker writes that “from the very beginning of English exploration of the New World there was a strong impulse to win the native population to Christianity. Evangelizing the natives became a powerful rationale for colonialism, and colonial charters emphasized this.”7 In the movie The Mission, the effort to evangelize is generally depicted as a positive one. From the martyr missionary of the first scene to the peaceful entry Father Gabriel makes playing his oboe, Christianity and its advances into the heartland of the South American natives’ homelands is seen generally as a positive as they bring prosperity and peace to formerly antagonistic and warfaring tribes. The negative side of this evangelization becomes apparent in the political disruptions that are imposed on the priests. They are unable to protect the natives in their care from the harsh decrees being passed down from governments ruling literally a continent and an ocean away. MISSIONARY STRATEGY DEPICTED IN THE FILM Father Gabriel comes as a man of peace to the Guaraní. While they have murdered another priest who sought to bring the Gospel to them, Father Gabriel approaches them seemingly unafraid, but also ready to be killed if they will do so. Much about this scene was reminiscent of Jim Elliott and his four missionary colleagues who tried to reach the Aucas in the Ecuadorian jungle and were murdered in 1956. In the movie, Father Gabriel succeeds and very rapidly brings the Christian faith to the natives. His mission serves as both a sanctuary and a place of education for them as they learn new skills, such as animal husbandry or crop growing. 7

Ruth Tucker, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya: A Biographical History of Christian Missions (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004), 74.

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This strategy is still seen today, e.g. when looking at the work of such organizations as World Vision, who start programs in their ADPs (area development programs) to teach skills to the children in the community to enable them to live better lives. OTHER ASPECTS OF MISSION HISTORY The film depicts the hardships of early missionary work well. Father Gabriel’s strenuous journey to the Guaraní, the effort he puts forth to build the community, the loneliness he undoubtedly experiences there, and the exchanges with political powers all find their reflection in the stories of missionaries of centuries past and to some degree even today. The Guaraní culture was depicted faithfully in the movie (from the author’s limited understanding and having been to the South American jungle only once). There was no hiding the partial or full nakedness of the children or adults. This in itself made the movie attractive. It was not attempting to hide the difference in culture Father Gabriel, Father Fielding and Mendoza faced. CONCLUSION There have been voices critical of the movie in that in the end Christianity appears to lose or that elements of liberation theology have tinted the movie, but this needs to be seen through the lens of Hollywood. The struggles depicted here, Father Gabriel’s struggle to start a reduccion in a largely inaccessible area, Mendoza’s personal struggles that he overcomes with the kind response by those he sought to enslave, and finally Altamirano’s struggle to find what is the right answer to the political demands in the context of Church strategy he is faced with all contribute to a movie that leaves the viewer in pensive thought long after the final credits roll.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Fahlbusch, Erwin, and Geoffrey William Bromiley. The Encyclopedia of Christianity. Leiden, Netherlands: Wm. B. Eerdmans; Brill, 1999-2003. IMDb. Awards for The Mission. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091530/awards (accessed April 7, 2012). The Mission. The Film. http://academic.sun.ac.za/forlang/bergman/real/mission/film8.htm (accessed April 8, 2012). Tucker, Ruth. From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya: A Biographical History of Christian Missions. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004.