The Mission mines of the same territory as Herzog's Aguirre: The Wrath of God. Both are about spiritual experiences by Europeans in South America, both center around protagonists who are fanatical in their quests, both feature stunning visuals. But Herzog's film connected with me on an emotional level that The Mission failed to do, and after while I became impatient with its endless shots of admittedly great beauty.
Set in 1750, the ostensible story revolves around Mendoza (Robert De Niro) a slave trader who kills his brother (Aidan Quinn) in a duel. Tormented by guilt, he is offered redemption by Father Gabriel (Jeremy Irons) a Catholic priest, and eventually becomes a monk himself. Mendoza bonds with the native South American people that he formally enslaved, becoming their greatest advocate. A great political struggle between Spain and Portugal breaks out, and the Vatican mediates that the Indians must leave the mission Mendoza works at, which will be turned over to Portugal. Unsure why God would force them to leave their home, the Indians refuse, and as the army closes in, a personal conflict emerges between Mendoza and Gabriel, with Mendoza siding with the Indians and Gabriel arguing that the church could never be wrong, even if their rulings, well, obviously are.
I was excited to see this movie, as I enjoy historical epics and it was written David Lean's favorite screenwriter, Robert Bolt. But the intellectual content of the movie is rather thin. How many movies have I seen have argued that religious organizations sometimes do the wrong thing? But the dialogue scenes are far more interesting the long, long stretches of photography. It is beautiful, yes, but we get the point after a while and the movie is too lazily edited for this to work as a purely formalist device, a la Koyanisqaasti.
In the film's defense, this would probably play much better on the big screen in a darkened theatre than it would on DVD, where it's much more difficult to develop the hypnotic effect it wants to. But…I saw Aguirre on DVD, and that stunning film still worked, drawing me into its world of spirituality and madness. Something is probably missing from The Mission - maybe it's a little to calculated. That, and the movie is miscast. De Niro and Irons are obviously great actors, but I could never seem to separate him from the streets of New York and see him as a historical character (I had the same problem with Harvey Kitel in The Last Temptation of Christ). Irons, on the other hand is too believable in his cerebral, somewhat autocratic character, and I never felt this guy cared much for church rules or anything else.
The Mission is an impressive film, to be sure, but it's more admirable than likable. Reviews of the movie were mixed, but enough liked it for it to win the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. I can't really recommend the film, but I will admit there are worse ways to spend 125 minuets.
The Mission (1986)