The Mission. 1986. UK/France. Directed by Roland Joffé. Screenplay by Robert Bolt. With Robert De Niro, Jeremy Irons, Liam Neeson, Aidan Quinn. 35mm. 125 min.
A brilliant piece of syncretic music, Morricone’s score combines indigenous Guaraní harp, panpipe, and takuapu; Catholic liturgies; and colonial Spanish guitar to evoke the unsettling clash between folkloric traditions and the cruel forces of imperial conquest. The film itself—about the forced conversion of the Abá in the Paraguayan jungle by Jesuit missionaries in the 1750s—was favorably received at the time of its release, save a handful of historians and ethnographers who described the Indigenous characters as nothing more than “mission furniture” while also decrying the film’s messianic “white savior” complex, centering as it does on the two rebellious priests who break their vows by protecting the tribe through violent (Robert De Niro) and nonviolent (Jeremy Irons) means.