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Rating:
Films, the ones that matter, are not only beautiful, but they trigger emotional reactions and make us reflect. This review aims also to be a reflection, respecting every belief.
This film is among the best I've ever seen, a combination of components at the highest level. A screenplay very close to what actually happened, a photography, a stunning natural scenario, a very talented cast (including non-leads), a soundtrack that made history.
We are in 1767, the Portuguese and the Spaniards (not just them...) are striving to conquer the lands of the New World, an immeasurable source of wealth for the old continent, from gold to silver, from spices to slaves.
The Jesuits, armed with the best will to bring Christ to the 'poor' natives (who probably didn't need it at all and certainly hadn't asked for it), after having colonized easily accessible lands prepare to venture into harsh areas, above the great waterfalls. There, amidst the dense equatorial forest, lives in harmony a people until then sovereign of the places where they were born. The Jesuits, led by an inspired Jeremy Irons as in few other of his films, convince these people that his god is the right one, teach them the art of singing and music, the technique of construction, prayer.
In the story enters a De Niro, excellent in his own way, who, being a repentant slave hunter, becomes a Jesuit to redeem himself from the atrocity of his younger brother's murder who had the luck/misfortune of falling in love, reciprocated, with his wife. Notable is the sequence in which he drags the heavy burden of sword and armor up the waterfall as the ultimate penance until reaching the village where he will redeem himself by helping his former victims up to the sacrifice of his life.
The very little supernatural matters of the Catholic Church, eager to maintain political balances in Europe to its advantage, drive the Pope to send an emissary to those lands with the task of curbing the Jesuits' intentions, for a "fair and profitable" division of those lands between Spain and Portugal. Although the cardinal acknowledges "the human nature" of the natives, he cannot but comply with the hegemonic and bellicose wills of these two European powers, aware of the cost of many innocent human lives, be they rightful inhabitants of those places, or the Jesuits themselves who do not accept this logic. A burden he will carry on his conscience for life.
In this film denunciation of reprehensible and unworthy acts of Man but unfortunately happened so often throughout history, true human nature is shown, violent and venal. The brutality of slavery, the violence of coercion in forcibly imprinting one's own religious creed, the massacres directly or indirectly caused by this will. Millions and millions are the human lives killed or tortured throughout history in the name of a god.
A reflection: although today the Church distances itself and in some cases denies the violence it committed in the past, how much has History been shaped by the 'divine will' executed by human beings who pretended to speak with the voice of a god?
The current political-religious situation, in Italy as in Europe, would certainly not be so without these "corrective" interventions willed by god with the arm of the Church and by all the powers that aligned with it. Millions of deaths are counted in Latin America, in the Holy Land, in Germany and the Netherlands at the time of Luther and so on. Would these really be things a god would allow? The same applies to other gods professed on Earth, of course.
Children dying of hunger and a few thousand kilometers away the most ignoble opulence, where food is thrown away because it's in excess, where someone spends one evening at a restaurant what would be enough to make a child live for a year? Women and children overwhelmed by tsunamis? Children hit and killed by cars driven by drunkards? A young man on his first day of work caught under a molten metal flow and dies after days of agony? The anguish of the parents. People praying in holy places and getting killed, trampled by a crowd of pilgrims like themselves?
"A god does not exist or, if he exists, he doesn't care about us."
Religion, whatever god it may be, as it is thought to exist, was invented by man in his own image and likeness, and not the opposite.
With a bitter taste in the mouth after this reflection, there remains still the pleasure of watching this great film and listening to it with the enchanting music of that Great Master Ennio Morricone. By throwing it out there, as a simple enthusiast, the direction (excellent) seems influenced by that Great Master Sergio Leone. Could it be?
nationality: Great Britain, 1986
director: Roland Joffé
screenplay: Robert Bolt
cinematography: Chris Menges
main cast: Jeremy Irons, Robert De Niro, Ray McAnally, Liam Neeson
with the special participation of the Guaraní people as themselves.
Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival 1986
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