VHS : The Mission [1986]

Rating: - Emotional
This 1986 award winning masterpiece is one of the few movies that demostrates what God/Nature is asking from each of us. To love one another. Still today politics is so far more important..so they think it is.

This movie is touching, loving, and shows how much one person can help so many people in terms of the constant battle between faith and greed. The ending of this movie will rip your heart out.

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Rating: - Stunning
This is a true story and it is a very sad one in the history of the west and of the church.
Robert De Niro, Jeremy Irons, Liam Neeson and many more take us through the history of slavers in South America. Irons, who plays a Spanish Jesuit Priest, goes into the wilderness to build a mission, to convert the Indians. DeNiro plays a slaver who eventually joins Irons' mission and serves the native peoples.

The main question in this film is that of ownership, and the right to make slaves. The mission begins in Spanish territory that is sold to the Portuguese. The Portuguese do not want to accept that the natives are humans - but at best trained monkeys - and that their Christianity does not protect them from becoming slaves. The Cardinal who came to oversee the decision came with a decision already made, and his inner turmoil, as the narrator, draws the viewer into the political side of the decision and the political side of the church's role in the decision, at that time, in a way that few other films ever have.

The film is a cinematographic masterpiece. While watching the movie, pay close attention to light and darkness, the music, and the angles used in filming. This movie is great and a must see because of the story it tells and the way it tells it. It is truly a film and not just a movie.

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Rating: - what happens if "God changes his mind"
Winner of the Palme D'or in 1986 at Cannes, "The Mission" is a feast to the eyes, as well as to the souls. Shot in exotic and spectacular backdrops of Colombia and Brazil, the film explores the power struggles and duality of Spanish and Portuguese presence in South America, depicts the violent clash of cultures, and the subjugation and eventual genocide of a tribe of Paraguayan indians known as the Guarani in the 1750s.

Seemingly "The Mission" appears to be a poignant movie about the harsh brutality of European imperialists toward primitive indians in an exotic locale. But the film is full of social didactic commentary, capturing the eternal struggle between greed & faith and power & honor. Without their consent, bringing "civilization" to an uncivilized mass be a good thing?; are they going to be better of with the salvation brought by the Jesuits? or their lives destined to be turned into hell by the condemnation brought by colonial monarchies?. At the end, Christianized "savages" become the victims of economic realpolitik, and people of God are killed in the name of God. This is really pitiful.

Of course, like all good movies the story is not enough. In this sense, "The Mission" depends too much on substance and style at the same time. Without top-notch performances of Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons, dazzling cinematography by Oscar-winner Chris Menges, and taut direction by Roland Joffe, it might have easily degraded into a cliché-drenched, stereotype-based flick narrating the story of the noble white man who civilized the savages by bringing them theocracy. Beatifully photographed from beginning to end, no single shot is without interest. The colors are wonderfully washed out to give the best possible effect. Backgrounds are thrilling, the views of the Igassu falls are particularly wonderful.

Last word: pure, plain and pitiful. This is a kinda movie that makes you think over and over again about the battle between faith and greed.

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Rating: - Powerful and emotional
A true story and a powerful on at that.
Read the other reviews for plot synopsis, I can't say anything others haven't already. The screenply is magnificent, the direction perfect, the cinematography second to none, the acting the best ever with truly powerful performances from Deniro and Irons while the music by Morricone is truly haunting (get the soundtrack as well).
This is a must have for any film collector and one I shall return to again and again. I cannot recommend this film more highly.

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Rating: - Heartfelt but unmoving and slightly disappointing
One of a trio of big-budget films that was intended to turn Goldcrest into a major producer after a run of successful (mostly) low-budget films but which instead all but destroyed the company, The Mission isn't as irredeemably disastrous as Revolution or as over-reaching as Absolute Beginners, but it's still a disappointment despite its many admirable qualities. Screenwriter Robert Bolt has an interesting, if obscure story to tell in the violent closure of the 18th Century Jesuit missions in Paraguay as part of a territorial wrangle between Spain and Portugal, with the Vatican going along with genocide to avoid political repercussions in Europe while the priests in the missions try to protect their native Guarani converts from the slave traders simply waiting for the Church to withdraw its protection. Robert Bolt's screenplay is strong, thanks to Chris Menges' cinematography the film looks superb and Ennio Morricone's score is one of his best. Yet the film feels as if something is missing, possibly because it is: the work-in-progress version that won the Palme D'Or at Cannes was reputedly nearly twice as long. What's left tells the story and makes its points, but doesn't really touch the heart or carry you along with more than academic interest. But perhaps worst of all, there's a gaping hole where the heart of The Mission should be in the form of Robert De Niro.

He looks the part, learnt fencing, speaks Spanish, yet for all that it's a hollow shell of a performance hiding behind underplayed surface detail. On paper his character is easily the film's most interesting, going from slave-trader to Jesuit missionary only to find himself at odds with his vows when he needs to protect those he used to prey on with force, but De Niro brings nothing to the part in a passive, detached and unemotional performance. His crisis of conscience and road to possible redemption seems no more torturous that trying to decide what to order from a disappointing restaurant menu. Very much a supporting role, if it weren't for his reputation you'd have no idea he's supposed to be the great actor of his generation.

By contrast, Jeremy Irons, often a stuffy and mechanical performer, is something of a revelation here, taking the part to heart and abandoning all artifice to give a performance that draws its strength from its genuine humility and humanity. But the film's best performance comes from Ray McAnally as the Papal representative sent ostensibly to judge the matter but in reality to provide a fig leaf for the Church abandoning its converts only to find himself all too aware of the immorality of his actions and tormented by his inability to rebel against them. It's a subtle portrait but a powerful one, and puts a genuinely human face on the film's clash between the ideals of faith and the realities of the way of the world. In many ways it's almost a pity that the film keeps him on the sidelines. (Incidentally, one of the actors playing one of the Jesuit missionaries, Daniel Berrigan, was himself a Jesuit missionary who had been threatened with excommunication, while the Portuguese villain of the piece is played by De Niro's real estate broker!)

The 2-disc DVD comes with an excellent one hour documentary about the making of the film from the days when they weren't studio-sanctioned love-ins. Concentrating on the impact on the Wawnana extras, much emphasis is placed on the possibly devastating cultural effects their involvement could have, only to be somewhat torpedoed by the telling detail at the end of the program that the entire tribe received only £85,000 for a month-and-a-half's work - apparently rather less than the fencing instructor De Niro insisted be flown in to the location to teach him got (De Niro fences for a grand total of 30 seconds in the film).