FI L M HISTORY
The Mission(1986)
DIRECTED BYROLANDJOFFE,The Mission
examines religion, politics, and colonialism
in Europe and South America in the mid-
eighteenth century. The movie begins
with a flashback as Cardinal Altamirano
(Ray McAnally) is dictating a letter to the
pope to discuss the fate of the Jesuit
missions in Paraguay. He begins by
describing the establishment of a new
Jesuit mission (San Carlos) in Spanish
territory in the borderlands of Paraguay
and Brazil. Father Gabriel ( Jeremy Irons)
has been able to win over the Guaranı
Indians and create a community based on
communal livelihood and property
(private property has been abolished).
The mission includes dwellings for the
Guaranı and a church where they can
practice their new faith by learning the
Gospel and singing hymns. This small
band of Jesuits is joined by Rodrigo
Mendozo (Robert De Niro), who has been a slave trader
dealing in Indians and now seeks to atone for killing his
brother in a fit of jealous rage by joining the community
at San Carlos. Won over to Father Gabriel’s perspective,
he also becomes a member of the Jesuit order.
Cardinal Altamirano now travels to the New World,
sent by a pope anxious to appease the Portuguese
monarch over the activities of the Jesuits. Portuguese
settlers in Brazil are eager to use the native people as
slaves and to confiscate their communal lands and
property. In 1750, when Spain agrees to turn over the
Guaranı territory in Paraguay to Portugal, they seize
their opportunity. Although the cardinal visits a number
of missions, including that of San Carlos, and obviously
approves of their accomplishments, his hands are tied
by the Portuguese king, who is threatening to disband
the Jesuit order if the missions are not closed. The
cardinal acquiesces, and Portuguese troops are sent to
take over the missions. Although Rodrigo and the other
Jesuits join the natives in fighting the Portuguese while
Father Gabriel refuses to fight, all are massacred. The
cardinal returns to Europe, dismayed by the murderousactivities of the Portuguese but hopeful that the Jesuit
order will be spared. All is in vain, however, as the
Catholic monarchs of Europe expel the Jesuits from their
countries and pressure Pope Clement XIV into
disbanding the Jesuit order in 1733.
In its approach to the destruction of the Jesuit
missions,The Missionclearly exalts the dedication of
the Jesuit order and praises the missionaries’
devotion to the welfare of the Indians. The movie
ends with a small group of Guaranı children, now all
orphans, picking up a few remnants of debris left in
their destroyed mission and moving off down the
river back into the wilderness to escape enslavement.
The final words on the screen illuminate the movie’s
message about the activities of the Europeans who
destroyed the native civilizations in their conquest of
the Americas: “The Indians of South America are still
engaged in a struggle to defend their land and their
culture. Many of the priests who, inspired by faith
and love, continue to support the rights of the
Indians, do so with their lives,” a reference to the
ongoing struggle in Latin America against the regimes
that continue to oppress the landless masses.The Jesuit missionary Father Gabriel ( Jeremy Irons) with the Guaranı Indians of
Paraguay before their slaughter by Portuguese troops.ª
Warner Brothers/Courtesy The Everett Collection, Inc.350 Chapter 14 Europe and the World: New Encounters, 1500–1800Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
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