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Mission, The
Roland Joffé's visually lush retelling of the historical destruction of an 18th century Jesuit mission in the South American jungle. Stars Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons and boasts a score from Ennio Morricone
The Mission never lives up to its opening: it's not that the rest of the film is bad, it's just that this sequence is so spectacular. A group of South American Indians carry a man (who we later learn is a Jesuit priest), bound to a cross, wearing a crown of thorns on his head. They throw him into a river, they run away, and the camera swoops in and out as he's shown plunging over the edge of a waterfall. It's breathtaking: the unforgettable image, made all the more powerful as Morricone's haunting theme swells over the pounding water. Although it isn't equalled in the rest of the film, it does set the tone: superb cinematography, fantastic music and religious despair. The unfortunate priest was a missionary who had been trying to convert the Indians that lived above the falls. When the body is found, the man who sent him, Father Gabriel (Irons) takes it upon himself to climb the falls (prompting another piece of bravura direction as he scales the vertiginous heights) and take over the mission. He seduces the music-loving Indians with his clarinet playing, and helps set up a harmonious co-operative trading community on the model of the larger Jesuit settlement further down the river. Unfortunately for the priests, their interests clash with those of the local slave-traders like the brutal Rodrigo Mendoza (De Niro). When Mendoza kills his brother in a fit of rage over a woman, he's overcome with remorse and - penitent - he joins the priests in their mission with the Indians. Apart from this minor victory, however, the priests have big problems. Their missions lie on a border zone that the Spanish - who claim to have outlawed the slave trade - intend to hand over to the Portuguese - who haven't and will allow it to continue, to the profit of the Spanish. A papal envoy, Cardinal Altamirano (McAnally, every inch the plump, privileged official, maintaining stately decorum while managing to show a deep moral struggle with his expressive eyes) arrives. He's ostensibly there to judge the dispute, but it's already been decided that he must sacrifice the Jesuits in the jungle for the good of the order back in Europe. A slow middle section of diplomatic wrangling builds inexorably to a violent, fast-paced and typically visually dazzling conclusion. The Mission isn't faultless. The sincerity of Joffé's lament for the fate of the Indians is beyond doubt, but the actual roles for Indians in the film rarely rise above the decorative. And the sketchy understanding of the role of Jesuits in colonial history makes this depiction of selfless saints seem a very naive one-sided account. Bolt's script (a typically mellifluous affair from the writer of Lawrence Of Arabia) makes a brief acknowledgement of their disastrous influence ("They don't want to go back to the forest because the devil lives there," says Gabriel to explain why the Indians would rather face death than leave the mission), but the issue is quickly brushed over. And although the mannered scenes showing the dripping eloquence of the various diplomats and envoys make a stark contrast to the brutality of the results of their words, they make for laborious viewing. All the same, the film looks superb from start to finish, the acting is almost universally top notch (De Niro's gutsy aggressiveness makes a particularly effective contrast with Irons' reserved, ascetic saintliness) and Morricone's score is a fine accompaniment to Joffé's passionate, heartfelt vision. Verdict A flawed, but still moving cinematic experience. Chris Menges' Best Cinematography Oscar was richly deserved, and the music and acting are equally impressive. |
