Im on a Mission

For me I have seen all of the movies mentioned to view for the assignment and the one i came back to was The Mission. Not to say that the other movies were not in any way better or worse but for me, I see the Mission as being very in your  face about the religious aspect.

In The Mission, the story is told as a story within the movie. We see a monk fall over the falls as a farewell for his death that we do not know of what cause. One of the very first scenes is of a monk climbing up the Iguazu falls that falls on the border of Brazil and Argentina. This is an awe inspiring feat to accomplish with nothing more than ones own body to do so. It was stated that when the father reached the top of the waterfalls and sat to rest playing his instrument, that the narrator said, "If the Jesuits had enough instruments they could've converted the whole world." This seems true from all of the amazing sounds and singing that they performed in the film.

One thing i really liked about the story is the whole cycle that occurs with Rodrigo Mendoza. He starts as a slave trader, then kills his brother, gives up on everything, agrees to carry his burdens up the waterfalls, gets forgiven by the natives he was capturing for slavery in the beginning, and then fights along side them against his own people at the end. If this isn't the biggest change in a movie then i dont know what is. One of the more emotional parts of the film is where Mendoza, played by Robert De Niro, is released of his burden being all the armor he wore as a slave trader by the native he was once after. You can tell by the tears that he cries because they are tears of joy and not of sadness.

At this time in the 18th century there were many missions, and some had to be disposed of for the others to prosper supposedly. (I personally thing the church was corrupt and still is) When the Cardinal comes to see the missions of the area he is in awe at San Miguel which is run completely by the natives with a few monks. But when he goes to San Carlos, it is there that he is able to make his decision on which to let go. Through this action and emotions he shows on the screen not much is said. With what it appears he feels, the escape of everything that is normal and common and immersion into complete isolation allows one to think about hard decision and ideas that may not have come if otherwise remained in the same life style.

Ultimately the Mission is set on fire and everyone killed by the order of the Cardinal. The only survivors are a group of small children. Here is a classic example of the white man taking whatever he wants simply by force. It is said by the Father in the end of the movie, "If might is right there is no place for love in the world, and maybe so." He does not see might as being the way things should be, but understands at that moment that maybe that is how things are.

Mackie says from our readings, "To show it we need some additional premises, or perhaps some quasi-logical rules connecting the terms 'good' and 'evil' and 'omnipotent'. These additional principles are that good is opposed to evil, in such a way that a good thing always eliminates evil as far as it can, and that there are no limits to what an omnipotent thing can do. From these it follows that a good omnipotent thing eliminates evil completely, and then the propositions that a good omnipotent thing exists, and that evil exists, are incompatible." If this is the case, then why did the evil Spanish and Portuguese people win over the Natives? Why did God not step in and smite them down for doing the evil thing? Why did all the good people have to die if they believed in God?