The Guarani weren’t interested. Not in visitors. Not in missionaries. Not in Jesus Christ Himself. They made that clear when they tied the Jesuit missionary to a cross and sent him over the falls.
But the Great Commission comes with no exemptions. Lives, temporal and eternal, totter in the balance. The Guarani may not want Christ, but Christ wants them.
If only Father Gabriel can reach them, physically and spiritually. If only he can survive long enough to show them a better way. So he begins his own trek to visit the unspoiled jungle above the falls—scaling the slippery stones to reach a reluctant people and show them the love of God.
But perhaps the Guarani aren’t the only people who need saving.
But in Europe, the world’s powers have other things on their minds than the state of a native’s soul. (Some question whether the Guarani even have such a thing.) They’re interested in land, resources and—in some quarters—bringing the Jesuits to heel.
While the Guarani are protected by the Jesuits while on Spanish soil, the Portuguese seek to take those lands and eliminate the protection offered by the missions. And as for the Guarani? Why, they’d make fine slaves.
Captain Rodrigo Mendoza has been catching and selling the Guarani for years—and he’s made his own forays above the falls. He’s perhaps one of the most feared men in Paraguay, both in town and jungle. He has no love for the Jesuits and their oh-so-holy interference: Their missions, after all, impact his bottom line.
Mendoza doesn’t know it yet, but his own life is about to take a cataclysmic turn. And one day, he will follow Father Gabriel up that perilous path and confront the Guarani again; not as a slaver, but as a sinner. Instead of stealing lives, he will come to give one: His own.
[Note: Spoilers are contained in the following sections.]
The character of Father Gabriel is loosely based on the Jesuit saint Roque Gonzalez de Santa Cruz. And indeed, The Mission’s Father Gabriel comes with a bevy of saintlike qualities. His love for the Guarani people is sincere and unmistakable. His arrival at the top of the falls showcases Gabriel’s humility. His partnership with them shows his kindness and grace. And his defense of their humanity against European discrimination and preconception showcases his moral strength.
But Gabriel is a man of deep personal courage as well. His climb up the falls illustrates that. The end of the film does so as well, illustrating his determination to stand with the tribe he’s evangelized at any cost to himself. But perhaps the clearest example takes place when Gabriel meets Mendoza for the first time. Mendoza, a ruthless killer, rushes and grabs Gabriel. “Are you laughing at me?!” Mendoza demands.
“I am laughing at you,” Gabriel says. “Because what I see is laughable. I see a man running away, a man hiding from the world. I see a coward.” Gabriel is indeed kind and loving, but he’s not meek. Not, at least, in how we use that word today.
That confrontation catalyzes Mendoza’s own remarkable transformation. This former slaver of people becomes an honored guest of the Guarani, in large part because of his own staggering wellspring of humility and kindness. From the man who seemed ready to kill Gabriel for laughing at him, he becomes a man that the whole village can laugh at—and he’ll laugh along. And in one critical scene, he rescues a child’s life at great risk to his own.
As the story unfolds, the unspoiled paradise of the Guarani is threatened by European political intrigue. Specifically, when the Portuguese seek to end Jesuit protection of the native people, Gabriel and Mendoza respond to the threat quite differently. One man actively defends the Mission’s invaders, while the other’s response is completely non-violent.
Those two contrasting responses invite us to ponder difficult ethical and theological questions: Is it better to fight for what we believe in, especially if that means defending vulnerable and innocent people? Or is it better to embrace a spirit of submission and sacrifice? The Mission powerfully illustrates these two potential responses to evil, and it asks us to ponder where, in this case, we might land.
And even though Gabriel and Mendoza are fictional (though Gabriel was loosely based on the Jesuit saint Roque Gonzalez de Santa Cruz), it should be noted the broad narrative brushstrokes in The Mission are rooted in history.
The Mission is about faith and God, sin and redemption. Rarely has a secular film tackled such subjects with such boldness. If we uncovered every spiritual wrinkle here, this section would be far too long, and the movie would be far less interesting. (If you want to hear much more about spirituality in The Mission, check out Plugged In’s Rewind discussion on the film.)
But here’s generally what you can expect.
Father Gabriel climbs up the falls to establish a mission to reach the Guarani—one of many in the region. They are sanctuaries from the slavers lurking around them, and they serve as centers for education, too. Their primary purposes, of course, is to introduce the Guarani to Christianity—but Father Gabriel admits that only “some” have come to the faith. But, of course, he knows as well as anyone that the process is a gradual one.
At the time of Gabriel’s work, Portugal (we’re told) was effectively ruled by the Marquis of Pombal, who was hostile to the Catholic Church (and to the Jesuits themselves). So when the mission territory’s governance shifted from Spain to Portugal (due to the very real Treaty of Madrid), the Marquis was determined to remove the protection of the missions and, thus, to undercut the influence of the Jesuit order in Paraguay.
That’s all real-world background for the arrival of The Mission’s fictional cardinal, Altamirano. In the movie, he’s been tasked with deciding the fate of Paraguay’s missions: Will they remain under the protection of the Catholic Church or be abandoned to the whims of Portugal’s Marquis? And while that would seem to be an easy decision, Altamirano must view it in light of some dispiritingly real-world considerations. The Jesuit order itself is under attack, and preserving the missions might be the tipping point that leads to its extermination. And if the Jesuits are destroyed, the authority of the Church itself might be undermined.
Ultimately, Altamirano feels trapped, believing that he must sacrifice the missions to save the Jesuits. And when he communicates this decision to Father Gabriel, Altamirano says that the Guarani “must learn to submit to the will of God.” When the Guarani speak to Gabriel and Altamirano asks Gabriel what they’re saying, Gabriel says, “They say it was the will of God that they came out of the jungle and build the mission. They don’t understand why God has changed His mind.”
Throughout the rest of the movie, we hear rumblings of confusion from the Guarani. When Altamirano suggests that the people return to the forests, where they’ve always lived, Gabriel says that they “don’t want to go back to the forest, because the devil lives there.” Mendoza reports to Gabriel that the Guarani believe that “God has left them. He’s deserted them.” And then Mendoza asks Gabriel, “Has He?”
All that threatens to overwhelm the spiritual turnaround of Mendoza himself. So let’s jump back in time to when Mendoza grabs Gabriel and asks if the priest is laughing at him.
After that confrontation, Mendoza lets go and slumps to the ground, listless and hopless. He is running away, as Gabriel suggested. His sins put Mendoza beyond redemption, Mendoza believes. But Gabriel suggests that even Mendoza’s considerable sins are not beyond the grace of God.
“God gave us the burden of freedom,” Gabriel says. “You chose your crime. Do you have the courage to choose your penance?”
That penance, Mendoza determines, is literally to follow Gabriel to the Guarani above the falls—dragging the accoutrements of his old, violent life (weapons and a full suit of armor) behind him. I shall not spoil the emotional resonance of this journey, but Mendoza feels the full grace of God at the end of it. Soon, he’s exploring Christianity in a way he’s never done before, and he reads 1 Corinthians 13, the Apostle Paul’s famous writings about love. It’s not long before he asks to be accepted into the Jesuit order, submitting to the leadership of Gabriel himself.
When Mendoza and Gabriel later quarrel over how to respond to the threat from Portugal, Mendoza is determined to fight and asks to renounce his place from the order. They need his help, Mendoza says.
“Then help them as a priest!” Gabriel says. He adds, “You promised your life to God. And God is love!”
Later, Mendoza asks for Gabriel’s blessing, which Gabriel refuses to give. “If you’re right, you’ll have God’s blessing,” Gabriel tells him. “If you’re wrong, my blessing won’t mean anything.”
We see crosses, hear people sing religious music and witness a raucous religious parade. The will of God and the Catholic Church are discussed regularly. People pray. The film ends with the verse John 1:5: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
The Mission presents the jungle above the falls as an unspoiled Eden, with some explicitly name-checking the biblical garden. As such, we perhaps shouldn’t be surprised that we see plenty of nudity among the tribal people there.
The Guarani wear very little. Women and girls go bare-breasted. Men wear loincloths that expose a great deal of their posteriors. And children are sometimes seen completely naked. And while what we see is not meant to be titillating (think of it in terms of a National Geographic magazine or doc), it’s still inescapable.
Before Mendoza’s spiritual transformation, he faces a crisis that’s precipitated by passion. As a slaver, Mendoza is engaged. But Mendoza’s fiancée, Carlotta, is actually in love with Mendoza’s brother. Carlotta tells Mendoza as much, which the slaver at first seems to accept. But he breaks into a bedroom and finds the two unclothed in bed together (nothing critical is seen). And that leads to …
… Mendoza fighting his brother and, ultimately, stabbing him in the gut. The wound is fatal, and the brother slumps to the ground, already dying, as Carlotta (clutching her undone dress around her) wails in horror and grief.
It’s not the first instance of violence we see, and it’s not the last.
A number of people are shot and killed—some with arrows, most with bullets. Explosions end the lives of others. Flaming arrows burn buildings and threaten those within. A number of people perish after plummeting down the movie’s spectacular falls.
Because The Mission was made in 1986, some of these scenes aren’t quite as shocking as they otherwise might be: The special effects just weren’t up to 21st-century standards. But even so, some moments are still horrific. One scene depicts living babies piled on the ground, crying in the rain—with the inference being that they’ll either be killed or left to die.
Several warriors are lined up and shot with one musket shot as children watch and flinch. Scores of Christian worshipers who are walking and singing behind a cross are methodically gunned down. And, of course, the opening sequence—when the missionary is sent to death over the falls—is incredibly impactful.
Explosions kill people. Guarani warriors hunt a boar, and it’s killed off camera. People are snared in nets, tied up and forced to run into town.
None.
As a slaver, Mendoza tries to drink his sorrows away. Altamirano and others drink wine. The missionary who dies in The Mission’s opening moments was perhaps mercifully drugged before his fatal journey.
Altamirano is told that the Paraguayan missions embrace a communal ethos (that later viewers might equate to a form of communism).
“Ah, yes. There is a French radical group that teaches that doctrine,” Altamirano says.
“Your eminence,” a Jesuit priest tells him, “it was the doctrine of the early Christians.”
In Genesis, we read about the Garden of Eden, a place unspoiled and home to God’s greatest creation. We read how a serpent invaded that garden, bringing with him ambition and envy. With two mouthfuls of fruit, the world fell—and we along with it.
The Mission echoes that fall.
The land of the Guarani is repeatedly compared to Eden, beautiful and pure. But European ambitions slither in, carrying on their scaly backs slavery and greed and conquest. In the closing moments of the film, Altamirano reflects on what he’s seen and what he’s done. And he weeps.
“We must work in the world, your Eminence,” someone tells him, trying to offer a hint of comfort. “The world is thus.”
“No,” Altamirano says. “Thus have we made the world. Thus have I made it.”
The Mission, likewise, forces viewers to navigate the problematic world it depicts. This is no unspoiled Eden of a film, filled at is it with violence, greed and a few hints that even Father Gabriel’s pure faith helped open the door for the evils that came after. (Altamirano wonders whether the Guarani “would not have preferred that the sea and the wind had not brought any of us to them.”)
But if I was going to point to the singular storytelling power of movies—movies that can both challenge and inspire, movies that can mix breathtaking beauty and gut-wrenching tragedy and speak to the saving grace of God—The Mission might be near the top of my list.
Powered by superlative performances from Oscar winners Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons (with a third Oscar laureate, Liam Neeson, lurking in the wings), The Mission was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won an Oscar for Best Cinematography. Its images might leave you speechless in the moment, but it themes will stick with you for weeks and months and even years.
Very few people are familiar with The Mission now. But given the story’s deep spiritual themes, it was near the top of my own list of movies to talk about when we began our Plugged In Rewind feature on YouTube (where we take an older movie and examine it from a Christian point of view).
Again, the movie’s not for everyone. Don’t be led astray by the PG rating, because it’s got some issues that should not be shrugged off. But if you can navigate those issues, The Mission is a fallen Eden well worth visiting.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
