Underrated (spoilers)

Rating: Null/10 (17 November 2005)

The Mission starts with quite a startling image. It starts with a group of Indians tying a priest to a crucifix and then sending him off down river. For a while he floats helplessly in the rapids but then he falls off the side of a huge waterfall. By the end of the movie you can't help but feel that the Indians would have been better off if they'd done this to every priest that crossed their path.
There's something quite loathsome about a group of foreigners barging into someone else's country and telling that they're wrong and that they should worship a non-existent sky god. It's arrogant (every religion and every country thinks it has the definitive answer) and it erodes cultures. But although I personally find the very nature of mission work distasteful, it's to The Mission's credit that it presents characters we can understand and sympathise with, for these people seem less interested in preaching religious dogma than encouraging the native people to flourish.
The majority of the film focuses on Father Gabriel, played by Jeremy Irons. He's the kind of priest that doesn't have all the answers and who isn't on a mad quest to save the soul's of the savage, barbaric Indians. In other words, he's a man you come to like.
The Indians come to like him too. Pretty soon he's gained their trust and they've welcomed him into their community. And he gains their trust in the simplest possible way  through music. There's one beautiful scene where he sits in the middle of the jungle playing the oboe. In the mist he kind of looks like a ghost. And it's not long before the curious Indians emerge. They don't quite know what to make of it. But what the scene suggests is that what unites us a species is a love of music and a desire to feel in harmony with the world. That's what all people share. Religion, on the other hand, seems to me to be nothing but divisive.
But although in the grand scheme of things religion has been nothing but a pestilence, the film also shows that on the small scale it can work. It certainly works for Robert De Niro's character, Mendoza. At the beginning he's a slaver who profits from trading the Indians. He also kills his brother in a fit of rage when he catches him with his woman. But after the murder he can't handle his guilt. Therefore he decides to pay penance by dragging a heavy bundle around with him. In this state he crosses rivers and climbs cliffs (some of the stunt work here is absolutely hair-raising, especially for someone, like me, who hates heights) but he only stops when one of the Indians, one of the people he used to hunt, cuts the bundle from around his neck and throws it into the river. It's only then, when one of the Indians forgives him for what he's done to them that he can forgive himself for what he's done in the past. It's an excellent scene, possibly the best in the film.
After this Mendoza becomes a Jesuit priest and joins Gabriel's order. And this leads to a nice series of scenes where Mendoza is welcomed into the community. The warmth that they offer him is the complete opposite of the coldness of the settlers.
And it's the settlers who are the villains of the piece. They're the kind of people who invade foreign lands and enslave other human beings while sincerely classing the indigenous population as savages. They're hypocrites and they're morally bankrupt.
But the Catholic Church doesn't come off much better. The crux of the story centres on a dispute over territory and whether the Church is going to protect the missions. Of course the Church turns out to be spineless and it tells the Indians to give up their homes, their mission and everything they've built to the settlers. But quite understandably, the Indians don't understand. They don't understand why god is treating them this way. I'm sure they're not the first to wonder why god is such a sadist.
But although the Church in the film comes across as worthless, the priests do come across as heroic. Even though it goes against everything they believe in, the majority of them decide to fight in order to protect what they've built. And in the end all of them die for it  the moment where a dying Mendoza sees Father Gabriel shot dead is one of the most powerful in the film. But although it's a noble act, it also makes you wonder what good religion has done for any of these people. Without it there certainly wouldn't have been such carnage.
Misgivings about religion aside, though, the film's rather wonderful. It's definitely one of the most beautiful films I've seen. The photography is gorgeous and Ennio Morricone's score is one of his best (which is saying something). In fact, the main title music may possibly be my favourite piece of film music. And I also love the oboe piece.
The acting too is excellent, especially Jeremy Iron's performance  it takes a lot of skill to make decency as interesting as villainy. But I do have to say that Robert De Niro feels a little out of place. Maybe he's played too many psychotics or maybe it's something wrong with me, but he's not entirely convincing in this film. But that's not to say he's bad. He just doesn't really seem to fit the character.
And I also have to say that the film drags a little in the final act  the final confrontation isn't as visceral as it should have been. But on the whole The Mission is a fine film. Indeed, any film that has me rooting for priests must be doing something right.