Textual Analysis Of The Mission Movie

The Mission (1986) is an Oscar winning, historically based film set in South America during the 1740s meant to convey the tragedy of the fate of Jesuit Missions, a power struggle between the Spanish, the Portuguese, and the Catholic Church, and an abominable loss of life. It seems as though the protagonists in this movie are the Jesuits, conveying an image of peaceful, godly servants, and the antagonists seem to be a mixture of the Portuguese and the Catholic Church as they fight for power in the Americas. At least, this is the director’s assumption of who the “good” and “bad” guys are, but truthfully when looking at history from an unbiased viewpoint the true protagonists could be seen as the Indians of South America while the antagonists

He begins to take what seems to be an extremely risky move and starts playing an oboe, knowing it will attract the attention of the Guarani. Though, when they make themselves known to Father Gabriel they do seem slightly hostile and break his instrument, he still seemed to gain the trust of the Guarani through music, leading the narrating Cardinal to comment, “if they were an orchestra, the Jesuits could have subdued a continent”. He begins to tell stories of the Jesuit religion and slowly converts the Guarani, persuading them to build a Mission named St. Carlos where much of the remaining plot will take place in. And everything seems to be going well for the Jesuits and the Guarani until a slave catcher name Rodrigo Mendoza come along stealing away and killing a good number of the Natives. The film then shifts again and starts to follow along with the point of view of this slave catcher to a different Mission called St. Miguel. Eventually, after a dramatic turn of events where he seems to lose the women he loves to another man, Mendoza kills his brother. In fear of eternal damnation for his actions, Mendoza meets Father Gabriel and leaves with him to find forgiveness for his crime, not only from God but also from himself. Mendoza ends up also being converted and becomes a set leading character

There really was a horrible series of happenings leading up to the massacre of the Guarani, and the mission of San Carlos truly did exist, but many specifics of the movie, especially the characters, did not occur. During this time in which The Mission is set, the 1750 Treaty of Madrid was signed transferring the ownership of South American land from Spain to Portugal and the Spanish Jesuits were forced to leave their missionaries. However, Father Gabriel and Rodrigo are fictional characters. Also, if the film was meant to be as historically accurate as possible, the grand battle between the Guarani, the Jesuits, and the Portuguese never would have occurred since in truth no missionaries stayed to help protect the Guarani. Also, there wasn’t simply one horrendous fight to end the conflict and the aggression between the Guarani and the Portuguese lasted almost three years. Even the narrating Cardinal of this film is historically inaccurate. Though there was a man during this time named Altamirano, he was an emissary sent by Ignazio Visconti and not a Cardinal sent by the