Stand Alone Classic

Rating: 10/10 (28 May 2015)

I just love this movie! I saw it when it first came out (I was about 7 years old) and to this day it is still one of my favorite films. It does a very good job at showing the relationship between beauty and pain in life and the relationships different groups of people have towards one another.
In some ways there are so many messages and different lessons to be learned from this but I have always felt that the real message was resonating just under the surface waiting to be discovered. That is that every person should have the freedom to live and make their own choices. There is really a lot to take in from this one and it will leave you thinking which I love. The film is about the power struggle between the Portuguese and the Spanish while they are colonizing South America in the 1700s. The struggle is between the church and slave owners who are both on a mission to pillage the lands and "civilize" the natives through their own means. Throughout the movie there is this struggle of right and wrong and the journey of redemption. Everyone is self righteous and no one is right. You are able to love and hate the same characters or at least see the human aspect in them as well as the monster. It is a provocative movie because it asks a lot of hard questions and shows that even people with good intentions can cause mass destruction. Of course the irony is that the most civilized and worldly behavior was that of the Guarani. It is also an incredible unjust and heartbreaking film that taught me a lot about (in)equality from a very early age!
I must also note that Roland Joffe is a great director and the Ennio Morricone/London Philharmonic provides one of the best movie soundtracks EVER!