The Mission Movie Analysis

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In my opinion, The Mission was a fantastic movie because of the action, the drama, and the history of the movie. As we saw, Father Gabriel, a Jesuit priest, entered the Guarani lands in South America with the purpose of converting the native Indians to Christianity. Father Gabriel was accepted by the Guarani Indians and then builds a mission, where he is joined by Rodrigo Mendoza, a reformed slave trader seeking absolution. Unfortunately, a treaty transfers the land in which Father Gabriel has built the mission from Spain to Portugal, and the Portuguese government wants to capture the natives for slave labor. Mendoza and Father Gabriel decide to defend the mission, but disagree on how to achieve the task. The history behind The Mission was …show more content…
The Portuguese colonials sought to enslave the native Indians, as the independent Jesuit missions tried to stop this from happening. As a result, Papal emissary Cardinal Altamirano, a former Jesuit priest himself, was sent from the Vatican to survey the missions and decide which, if any, should be allowed to remain. The history behind The Mission taught me a great deal on the Jesuit order, the culture of the Indians, and the Treaty of Madrid between Spain and …show more content…
As we saw in The Mission, Cardinal Altamirano had to decide the fate of the mission based on the fact that the land on which the mission sits has been surrendered by the Spanish to the Portuguese, who are open to enslaving the indigenous peoples. Cardinal Altamirano factored into the equation of his decision that the Portuguese may take action against the church as a whole if this one mission is not closed. In the end, Altamirano tells the Guarani that they must leave the mission and return to the forest. Furthermore, Altamirano tells Gabriel that the missions must be sacrificed to preserve the Jesuit order in Europe. The Guarani Indians then decide to fight which causes Father Gabriel and the order to decide how to proceed. As we know, Father Gabriel does not engage in the fighting, but Mendoza does indeed fight with the Guarani

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