Saturday Night at the Movies: An Impossible Mission?

Fighting for Faith

Recommending The Mission feels as unnecessary as recommending The Godfather, considering it is a fairly recent movie with big name stars, lots of Oscar nominations, and regular appearances on lists of greatest religious-themed movies of all time. Still, you never know - I’m reminded of Billy Crystal’s line in When Harry Met Sally about his much-younger new girlfriend: “I asked her where she was when Kennedy was shot, and she said, ‘Ted Kennedy was shot?!?’” So, on the off chance you have not heard of The Mission, this is the long weekend to make its acquaintance.

Sometimes you don’t choose a movie, a movie chooses you. In this case, Mollie Hemingway was recommending The Mission on the latest episode of her fantastic podcast with David Harsanyi, and then Rod Dreher wrote about it at his place today. I had recently rewatched it myself, so you can see I had no choice in the matter.

The movie tells the story of missionaries deep in the jungles of Paraguay. It is worth watching for each individual element alone. The setting - the missionaries have to climb a waterfall to reach the native village - is breathtakingly beautiful. The history - largely true, if accelerated for cinematic purposes - of the church first building missions and then abandoning their inhabitants for European realpolitik type reasons, is fascinating. Setting aside the larger political machinations, the portrayal of the daily work of the missionaries will inspire you (a great companion piece is Willa Cather’s classic novel, Death Comes for The Archbishop). The central debate between the leads - DeNiro’s instinctively combative approach to defending his flock versus Irons’ passion for peace - will keep you debating as well, long after film’s end.

And then there’s the music. Arguably the greatest score ever made, certainly in any top 10 or 20 list. What makes Morricone’s soundtrack especially memorable is that it isn’t a typical soundtrack at all - instead of themes that play when certain characters appear, it is the characters themselves who play the themes. The music is very much a real part of the story - most memorably in Irons first encounter with hostile natives who have literally crucified prior missionaries. The missionaries use the divine beauty of music to reach the souls of the natives and then teach their students not just faith, but heavenly music as well (maybe a lesson there for our current missionary field?). My wife, a classical musician, explained to me at length the technical sophistication behind Morricone’s score; most of her patient teaching was nevertheless over my tone-deaf head, but one takeaway is that the orchestra appears to play in a different meter than the choir is singing, giving a consistently novel sensation to the music, which overlaps in new and surprising ways. In any case, if you’re keeping a list of the biggest Oscar snubs of all-time, this movie losing in the Best Soundtrack category is certainly up there.

Put all those elements together, and you have a beautiful, educational, thought-provoking film that’s a joy to listen to. I hope you enjoy it and have a wonderful long weekend!