The Mission
The MissionThe Mission
The film The Mission was written by Robert Bolt and was produced in 1986. Fernando Ghia produced it. The movie was about a man who was trying to start a mission in the new world when he meets a former mercenary who is willing to renounce his former ways and become a priest. The Spanish try to take the land from them saying they own it under the Treaty of Madrid. When the Indians refuse to leave their home the Spanish slaughters them and takes it from them.
The Indians seemed to live in fear of the white man, they had to do many things in order to be able to run and hide from them. The Indians had to kill all but one of their children, the reason? They couldn't run from the white man with more than one child. The Indians also seemed to have an affinity for music, that is how father Gabriel kept them from killing him earlier in the movie. A person in the film also said �we could have taken the entire island if we had an orchestra.� Practices could also be added to what Captain Rodrigo was forced to do in order to renounce his former ways.
Captain Rodrigo Mendoza, a mercenary and slave trader who first came to the top of the water fall in order to capture Indians for slave, was later one of Father Gabriel�s closest followers. Captain Rodrigo�s penance or self-punishment was to carry a huge bag of armor up the hill and over the water fall. Once he got to the top they cut it off and threw it down freeing him from his former life and making him �eligible� to become a Jesuit priest under Father Gabriel. Father Gabriel who would die for what he believes, while Rodrigo would renounce his ways in order to fight the Spanish.
Father Gabriel died a peaceful man, while Rodrigo would renounce his ways in order to fight back against the Spanish. Gabriel was on a �peaceful march� as the Spanish reined fire upon his people and the mission. Gabriel didn't believe in what the Spanish or Rodrigo were doing, using violence to settle a matter of God, so he refused to fight back and died under god as a priest.
The mission told me that it is okay to follow what you believe even if nobody else is behind you. I enjoyed the movie overall but some parts seemed to get a little boring, I especially liked the part when Captain Rodrigo was carrying the bag of armor up the hill and when he got to the top he was �reborn� under god. I would rate the movie 3 � out of 5 stars because it was very slow and then it seemed to skip through some things all of a sudden they were fighting. Despite this I still enjoyed the movie.
This movie taught me that during the colonization of the new world was to spread their own religion but came in second place to greed and politics. I think this movie showed that very well, and when it came to their land the Spanish were willing to kill anybody in order to get it. The age of Discovery/Exploration did a lot of good things for the world but it also started to destroy it in this sense.