Mission (film)

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Movie
German title mission
Original title The Mission
Country of production Great Britain
original language English
Publishing year 1986
length 126 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Roland Joffé
script Robert Bolt
production Fernando Ghia ,
David Puttnam
music Ennio Morricone
camera Chris Menges
cut Jim Clark
occupation

Mission (Original title: The Mission ) is a British film directed by Roland Joffé from 1986 . Based on a true story, it tells of representatives of the Society of Jesus , which in the 18th century South American natives evangelize and help them to political upheavals in Europe going against the invading Portuguese to defend. The film has received multiple awards, including an Oscar .

action

The near the Iguazu Falls living Guaraní tie a priest to a cross and let it pour down the falls. From the off, the film's narrator, the papal envoy Altamirano, explains that the death of this missionary will affect the lives of a large number of people. Another father named Gabriel is sent. He dares to climb the waterfalls and makes contact with the Guaraní by playing an oboe , which becomes the leitmotif of the film. They then take Gabriel with them. He is spared the fate of his predecessor. This enables him to introduce the Guaraní to the Christian faith.

Filming location Iguazú waterfalls

With the Treaty of Madrid (1750) , which redefined the borders between Portuguese-colonized Brazil, where Indian slavery is legal, and the Spanish colonies of South America, where it has been abolished, the Jesuit reductions now come under Portuguese rule and are subject to raids Exposed bandeirantes who want to enslave the Guaraní. The Portuguese soldier and slave trader Rodrigo Mendoza kills his half-brother out of jealousy in a duel. He is desperate and breaks with his previous life. Mendoza joins a Jesuit mission out of repentance ( see also : Jesuit reductions of the Guaraní ), which takes care of the endangered indigenous people. On the way there he drags his heavy armor with him like a cross as a self-imposed atonement . The other friars have pity on him and want to free him from the burden. But Father Gabriel, leader of the Fathers, objects that Mendoza must decide for himself when his deed is sufficiently atoned. When he and the missionaries arrive at the indigenous people, they recognize him as the former persecutor and threaten him with weapons. Mendoza is ready to die. The indigenous people show mercy and cut the rope - the armor and stabbing weapons fall into the depths. Mendoza is deeply touched by the forgiveness he has been granted.

Mendoza finds peace of mind in the work of the jungle mission led by Father Gabriel. The problem of the Jesuit missions, which do not want to come under Portuguese influence, is presented to a commission headed by Altamirano. He then visits the mission, lets himself be touched by the early Christian atmosphere, enjoys their musicality, and then returns to the colonial city and realpolitically decides that the treaty of the two monarchies is to be kept and that the Jesuits have to obey the papal instructions . In the end, violence triumphs: Missionaries and natives are massacred by Spanish and Portuguese soldiers because they oppose the interests of the colonial rulers. As the troops approach Gabriel and Mendoza's mission, Mendoza prepares violent resistance from the indigenous people . The old weapons in the river are raised and sharpened. Mendoza asks Father Gabriel for his blessing, which Gabriel refuses. He says that if Mendoza is right then he has God's blessing, if not, Gabriel's blessing is meaningless. The men hug each other.

Mendoza and some indigenous people steal gunpowder from the soldiers' camp the night before the attack . As the mercenaries approach, Mendoza prepares to blow up a bridge that the attackers must cross to get into the mission. On another nearby bridge he notices an abandoned toddler. While he is rescuing the child, the soldiers cut the pull line that is supposed to trigger the detonation. Mendoza is shot. Dying, he sees that Father Gabriel, with a monstrance in his hands, leads a procession of defenseless indigenous people who are walking towards the attackers. Gabriel is also shot, one of the indigenous picks up the monstrance and continues the procession. The soldiers murder the defenseless women and children and burn the Indian settlement down.

The papal envoy, Altamirano, who was responsible for evacuating the mission, asked the troop commander whether the massacre was necessary. The answer he gets is that they have to act in the “real world”, which is “like this”. To which Altamirano replies, “we” made the world this way - after a moment he adds that “he” made the world this way. At the end of the film he quotes from his report to the Pope , in which he describes the death of the religious and reveals that he has felt "dead" since then. The final scene shows a Guarani girl leaving the settlement, recovering a violin from the river and rowing away in a canoe with other surviving children. The film ends with a faded in text that says that the indigenous people are fighting to survive to this day and that their culture is being destroyed. A quote from the Gospel according to John is also displayed. After the credits, Altamirano's face is shown again.

Emergence

The script was inspired by the play The Holy Experiment by the Austrian playwright Fritz Hochwälder from 1943. The shooting took place in Argentina at the Iguazú waterfalls as well as in Colombia in Cartagena and on the Río Magdalena . The Guarani were represented by the Wounaan . Chuck Low , who plays the slave trader Cabeza, was the realtor for Robert De Niro's New York apartment at the time and had starred in other films with Robert De Niro such as: B. in King of Comedy and Once Upon a Time in America minor roles.

Historical background

Saint Roque González de Santa Cruz (1576–1628)

The film is based on events that followed the Treaty of Madrid, in which Spain ceded part of Paraguay to Portugal in 1750. The narrator of the film, the Papal envoy Altamirano, corresponds to the Andalusian Jesuit Father Luis Altamirano, who was sent to Paraguay by the Jesuit General Ignazio Visconti in 1752 to oversee the transfer of the territory to Portugal. Seven reductions by the order south and east of the Río Uruguay were affected . In return, Spain promised each mission 4,000 pesos , that is, less than one peso for each of the 30,000 or so guaranis who lived in the area of ​​the reductions. The value of the farmland, cattle and buildings was estimated at 7-16 million pesos. The climax of the film is the Guarani War from 1754 to 1756 , in which members of this people under the command of Sepé Tiarajus defended their homeland against Spanish and Portuguese armed forces who tried to implement the Treaty of Madrid. For the film, one of the seven missions was recreated, namely that of São Miguel das Missões .

The film combines these events with the story of older Jesuit reductions that were founded between 1610 and 1630 on the Paranapanema river above the Saltos del Guairá . These were given up in 1631 when the Jesuits and Guaranis had to flee from the Paulistani Bandeirantes . The battle at the end of the film is reminiscent of the Battle of Mbororé, which was fought on land and sea in 1641: Here the Jesuits had equipped the Indian warriors with firearms so that they could defeat the Bandeirantes.

The figure of Father Gabriel bears the features of the Jesuit Roque González de Santa Cruz , who was murdered by a cacique in 1628 . He was canonized as a martyr in 1988 .

Film music

The film has lasting importance due to the striking score by Ennio Morricone , in particular the melody Gabriel's oboe exists in numerous interpretations and transcriptions. In the 2005 list of America's Best Film Music of All Time published by the American Film Institute , this composition was ranked 23rd.

publication

The cinema release in Germany was January 8, 1987.

Reviews

English language reviews

Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times of November 14, 1986 that there was not a single scene that was not beautiful to look at; however, the scenes would not form a coherent narrative. The figure of Rodrigo Mendoza is consistently rated negatively by Ebert in his criticism. Ebert found the fighting scenes at the end of the film to be confusing and badly choreographed. He described the representations of the actors in the individual scenes as “effective”.

Rita Kempley wrote in the Washington Post on November 14, 1986 that the depictions of Jeremy Irons and Robert De Niro were just as ponderous as they were powerful. She described the film as majestic and warned that it stretched the limits of the viewers' religious tolerance. Instead, the film offers insights into the complicated church diplomacy and great (“gorgeous”) images of the Iguaçu waterfalls .

Steven D. Greydanus wrote in the Christian film guide decentfilms.com that the film may not be perfect, but it contained some of the most moving images of despair, penance and reconciliation ever made.

German-language reviews

“Drama slowly developed in an epic breadth, clearly formulating ethical claims and mastering its cinematic means in a remarkable way. Amazingly differentiated in the representation of the inner conflict. "

“The […] strip certainly doesn't show light fare, but it's worth seeing. Even if the film is slightly drawn out in the middle section, while the beginning could have been shown a bit wider, Joffé has created a more than successful and touching film, which also features two very convincing leading actors with Robert de Niro and Jeremy Irons can show, while Liam Neeson has to suffer from the fact that his role is much too small. "

- Film review center

Awards

The film was in 1987 with an Oscar for Best Cinematography Award and served as best film , the best director , the music , the scene image , the costume designer and the best cut nominated.

Ennio Morricone won the Golden Globe Award for the film music , as did Robert Bolt for the script. The film received three other Golden Globe nominations: for Roland Joffé ( Best Director ), Jeremy Irons ( Best Actor - Drama ) and Best Film - Drama .

The film received the BAFTA Award in three categories, including Ennio Morricone, and was nominated for the BAFTA Award in eight other categories.

Roland Joffé won at the 1986 International Film Festival of Cannes , the Palme d'Or and Grand technical price.

In 1995 Mission was included in the Vatican 's film list, which comprises a total of 45 films that the Holy See believes are particularly recommendable. A five-person Dutch jury, made up of filmmakers and theologians, voted the film the “best Catholic film of all time” in October 2009.

The German film and media rating awarded the film the title “Particularly valuable”.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Certificate of release for mission . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , September 2009 (PDF; test number: 57 148 V).
  2. ^ Sabine Prüfer: The Individual at the Crossroads. The Works of Robert Bolt, novelist, dramatist, screenwriter. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1998, p. 145.
  3. ↑ Audio commentary by director Roland Joffé on the film's DVD (Arthouse 2010).
  4. not to be confused with the Chilean general of the same name !
  5. a b James Schofield Saeger: The Mission and Historical Missions: Film and the Writing of History. In: The Americas. Volume 51 (1995), No. 3, pp. 393-415.
  6. Mission. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  7. Review on Film Review Center ( Memento from October 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  8. Mission , in: FBW website, accessed on Nov. 27, 2019