Blog 1- The Mission

Have you ever read a  book to where you find it boring or maybe even yet interesting, and then you find yourself sitting in a movie theater, watching  the same book get made into an  on screen movie hit a year or two later?  Today’s films have always had an entertaining or action packed ending to create an interesting feel to history. They tend to change or exaggerate the truth in order to create an attention grabbing feel to the plot. The Mission is a great example of emphasizing on this matter. For example, in Saegers’  writing he brings up the idea that the Guarnis people are portrayed as white people killers in the movie due to the beginning scene where a white male priest has been whipped an placed on a cross to where he eventually falls down a waterfall to his death. We are labeling  the Guarnis as racist, evil human beings throughout the movie. However the Guarnis and the Spaniards had a tying relationship to where they helped each other out. The Guarnis gave Spaniard women assistance with work and food in return for military protection. 

Spain and Portugal are enslaving the indigenous people and using them for their own labor and selling them to other nations. The Mission however captures them in a way to which they are still good by giving Mendoza the lead part of being the “hero” in the outcome of the movie. His slave hunter duties to the Europeans are put to a past when he travels the long, treacherous hike with Father Gabriel to serve his penance for killing his own brother. He then learns to do good and becomes a Jesuit. He tries to help the Guarnis fight during the war to help them keep their rights to stay with the Church and avoid moving back into the wilderness. Another way Joffe is depicting the way that the indeginous people are not suffering and that the Europeans have been attempting to help the Guarnis during this time in era. In reality Saeger’s writing shows that both cultures used each others resources in order to better their lifestyles for their people.

Also Saeger writes about the unfairness of equality amongst the Jesuits, Europeans and the Guarnis. He explains that the Guarnis had no say and had to conform to Christianity or would be sold to slavery or even killed. The main authority and voice were given to the Jesuits and the Europeans. In the movie Altamirano the papel, gives the Guarnis the option to leave and move back into the wilderness (giving them their freedom to live life the way it was before). Yet the Guarnis had no decision of their own and were given ultimatums basically. The scene where the papel, Father Gabriel, and the Guarnis members were seated discussing the issue for the Guarnis to leave made no sense to me at all. The beginning of  the story was to get the Guarnis to conform to the Church (which they did). The papel then asked them to leave because they were “animals” and unfit to belong to the Church. Catching scenes like these I feel can tell you when the truth has been changed or fitted in order to make a better part to the movie.