The Mission

The Mission

The Mission is a very sad and interesting movie, based on a true event. During the 18^Th century a Spanish Jesuit, Father Gabriel goes into the Brazilian wilderness. There he builds a mission hoping to convert the Guarani natives into Christians. Mendoza is a slave trader who out of rage ends up killings his own brother, once he discovers that he has been sleeping with his wife. Father Gabriel prevents Mendoza from killing himself by converting him into a Jesuit priest. Mendoza joins the mission and vows to never again participate in an act of violence. By having to carry armor and weapons, tied in a satchel and attached to his waist he proves to everyone he is ready to be a priest. The church, under pressure, surrenders the land to the Portuguese which plan is to allow slave trade again. The Portuguese attack the Guarani in attempt of destroying the mission. Mendoza breaks his vow and organizes the natives to resist the Portuguese attack, against Father Gabriel’s orders, but they all end up dying anyway.
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The geography of the movie The Mission affected a few components in the live of the Guarani. The Guarani tribe was hidden from the rest of the world because of where it was located. It took a while for Spanish to find the Guarani because they were so well protected by the huge jungle, large cliffs and waterfalls that surrounded the tribe's home in Brazil. Also geography separated Brazil and Spain, because they were simply continents away and more than 4,000 miles apart from each other.


The Jesuit missionaries made some moral and immoral decisions that led to interesting things in the movie. The Jesuits truly believed that if you didn't believe in god, you where going to go to hell. They were simply trying to help the Guarani, so to them it seemed a moral decision to convert the Guarani into Christians. In the long run the poor Guarani were killed by the Portuguese, who just wanted to enslave the native people and take their land. what the Portuguese did was immoral and unjust.

Is the world getting better or worse?

In my opinion the world is getting worse. Now a day we have the technology to do much more than before, which is good, but also part of the problem. Scientists have created new and improved medicines. These medicines are saving people's lives, helping them fight against deceases, and curing what was impossible back then. Other than that our machines and other technology have been creating pollution and other types of contamination that now affect the earth. Poverty is not getting any better and the economy is going downhill. Our dependency on oil is still huge and we haven't found any useful alternatives. A Nature Conservancy study shows that 5,121 flowering plants are in danger of disappearing. We are aware that the ozone layer is deteriorating and that the ice caps are melting, and it’s true that some people have created programs and groups to try to solve this problems. This is not enough though; we need everyone to help make the world better, not just a few people. It is too late to fix the problem, but we can make the problem stop or progress slower than it is now.