The Mission Improbable

The Mission taken as pure fiction and not an account of actual events could be seen as a decent enough movie.  However the text at the beginning of the movie claims that it based off of true events. After reading the articles for this week, I now see that they meant very loosely based.  The only thing the filmmakers seemed to get absolutely right was the fact that there were natives, Spaniards, Portuguese, and the Jesuit missionaries.

            I am fine with filmmakers taking artistic liberties when it comes to adapting anything from books to history.  Saeger, in his essay, would agree with this view; “as artist they may legitimately reorder events, create new characters, and still retain historical integrity.”  He also mentions, often, that the filmmakers could have easily created dynamic Guarani characters and shown us how the natives were effected by the Jesuit missionaries’ presence in their. Instead they continue to perpetuate the view of indigenous people that historians have held for hundreds of years. One of the liberties they that is forgivable is the change in location that they make in order to give the setting a more untouched feel. 

            One of the more extreme liberties taken by the filmmakers is the “crucified” Jesuit missionary from the beginning of the film.  Since there is no reason given for his execution by the Guarani, “one inaccurately concludes that customarily killing whites was in their nature.”  This was not the case however.  At the time they not have familiar with the story of Jesus crucifixion, and would not have executed anyone in that manner, no matter how metaphorical it could be.  The Guarani people welcomed the Jesuits.  Of course that was mostly because the Jesuits gave the iron tools that made tree-clearing and planting crops easier for the Guarani.  The Jesuit missionaries also seem okay with the Guarani women being publicly nude.  The real Jesuits were not okay with that.

            Another questionable twist of the truth is the Guarani’s acceptance and eventual conversion to Christianity.  The Guarani were far from accepting of their new neighbors’ religion.  However, in the movie they seem to have no religion of their own and are “cultural ciphers” that easily accepted this new religion.  Its not like they had their own religion that they would have to deny in order to convert to Christianity or anything.  Oh wait, they actually did.  And they constantly rebelled against their Christian “masters.”  And it would be generations before they even tried to accept Christianity as their own religion.

            The real Jesuits were not as nice as the movie would have us believe.  They used “coercion, persuasion, and material rewards to bring Guaranis to missions.”  They were strict disciplinarians and kept the Guarani against their will.  Beatings in the Jesuit missions “were not unknown.”  The Jesuits, like most Europeans in the Americas, were there for their own economic gain under the guise of converting the ignorant.

            The most glaring misuse of artistic liberties is having Schindler/Qui-Gon Jinn/Rahs Al-Ghul/Aslan (Jesus)/Guy from Taken/Zeus/Liam Neeson fight on the side of the Guarani, and then have them lose.  Not. Even. Possible.