Thirty-one years ago, director Roland Joffe made The Mission, a gripping story of humanity, personal redemption, and the cruel reality of colonization. The movie stars Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons and is set in 18th century South America in a catholic mission deep in the Amazon rain forest. While pretty obscure to people today, it is perhaps one of the most pertinent films for our time. It's sad to say that even thirty years after The mission was made the nature of our world hasn't changed.
The Mission revolves around the true events of the European enslavement of the South American tribes and the end of Missionaries in that region. In the early 1700's, the Spanish and the Portuguese were carving up different regions along the lands of the Guaranís tribe. At that time, the Jesuit priests were establishing missions which became the only safe haven for the Guaranís fleeing from the Portuguese slavers. Unfortunately, both the Spanish and Portuguese decided to cease the missions and eradicate the Guaranís tribe in order to further settle that territory. One can clearly see the relevance of that story in modern times where in much of the world we see indigenous people made to suffer all in the name of "civilization".
While largely fictionalized, the film still stands up as a masterpiece. Its cinematography (which won an Oscar), music, acting and beautiful story combine to make one of the most mesmerizing movies I've ever seen.
For me this is one of Deniro's all time best performances. His dialogue is low-key, in fact I don't think he actually has all that many speaking lines in the movie. However, his screen presence is truly eye catching. He does this magnificent job at acting without acting by realistically interacting with the other characters. And just about every one else give pretty subtle but still memorable performances, like Jeremy Irons and Liam Neeson.
Another thing I found very refreshing is that all of the actors are doing their real accents. The cast is made up mostly of English speaking actors, including Americans, playing Spanish and Portuguese. Still, the Americans speak with their own accents as do the rest of the cast which is almost unheard of today where every period film seems compelled to make all the characters, even if they're Chinese like in Netflix's Marco Polo, use British accents.
If nothing else, the music and the visuals of the movie, both by themselves and together, are awe inspiring. The score composed by the legendary Ennio Morricone is a perfect representation of the film, heartbreaking but in a kinda beautiful way. And don't even get me going on the visuals. I mean, just watch the trailer here:
It's all shot more or less on location in Amazonian South America and because of that authenticity you get completely immersed in the story.
And it's because of the story that the Mission is so important for today's audience. We live in a world where we see Sioux protesters savagely beaten for deafening their right to clean water, poor black and Latino communities oppressed by a corrupt system, and Syrians caught in the cross fire between national super powers. By that, this film should hit a nerve with anyone who has trouble accepting the horrors of what remains our generation's reality.
