The Mission - a magnificent film about guilt and reconciliation

(See also what the International Movie Database says about The Mission.)

Please note: This article may spoil your spontaneous enjoyment of the film. A number of significant events are revealed, so if you want to watch the film without preconceptions, we advise you to read the article afterwards.

Don't expect any easily digestible entertainment when you sit down to watch The Mission! Admittedly the opinion is often expressed that The Mission (1986, directed by Roland Joffé) is one of the most underrated and unjustly overlooked films of all time.

However, in spite of some features that are acknowledged as top-quality (Chris Menges' skillful, Oscar-winning camerawork, Ennio Morricone's suggestive, "jungle-sacred" music, unsurpassed natural scenery, historical accuracy, impressive cast list, etc.), many critics still found it hard to appreciate the film as a whole, and it was certainly never a box-office hit.

Collective guilt

I believe that one explanation for this is the fact that many sensitive viewers, after seeing the film, feel a vague sense of collective guilt: that they have played their part in the loss of yet another paradise.

As we all know, guilt is not a pleasant feeling, and you need to be a mature individual to be able to handle it without recoiling and trying to avoid it. The film's authors must have had this in mind and realized that The Mission might be perceived as provocative, yet still considered the message sufficiently important to take the risk. (Note 1)

In the US, the film was released shortly after heavily criticized US military action in Central America, so in some circles it may have been labelled "anti-American". In Sweden's thoroughly secular cultural life, the film's strong elements of Christian religion probably did not go down well with many people.

Jesuit missionary activities

The narrative framework of the film consists of a report written by the papal nuncio, Cardinal Altamirano (his final dispatch is delivered after the end titles, so stay seated!), in which he describes how he is getting on with his assignment: to put a stop to the missionary activities of the Jesuits in the Amazon basin. (Note 2)

The Cardinal tries to stick to the facts, but his apparently cold detachment is unable to conceal the bitter guilt he feels for the results of his involvement. The film-going public here (the heirs of colonial Europe) and in the US (citizens of the modern-day superpower) may easily feel that this guilt has been passed down to us, who base our consumer society on cheap labour in former colonies, for instance.

In Altamirano's case, the guilt relates to an intractable dilemma: Should one act according to one's own conscience or one's duty to one's employer? His choice probably cost him many sleepless nights.

Father Gabriel

The next guilt-ridden person is Father Gabriel (Jeremy Irons), who is responsible for having involved the indigenous population in a civilizing project that he lacked the resources or the mandate to complete. However, he personally accepted full responsibility for his mistake and followed the most consistent course open to his strict conscience. In this light, the "grovelling apologies" offered by modern-day politicians are clearly exposed as the ridiculous show for the audience that they really are.

Finally, we have the film's most interesting character: Rodrigo Mendoza (Robert de Niro). He undergoes a dramatic personality change - from an apparently unscrupulous slave trader and former mercenary to a defender of the indigenous population. (Note 3)

Mendoza's conscience is unfettered by any hierarchical system, unlike the Cardinal's and Father Gabriel's, and he is undoubtedly the character who is most successful in relieving himself of his guilt.

PSYCHIATRIC COMMENTS

Guilt as a psychiatric phenomenon

A feeling of guilt includes the sense that one, in thoughts, words or actions, has harmed other people, contrary to one's own conscience. Feelings of guilt manifest themselves as internalized, painful self-criticism, independent of whether those around are paying any attention.

A feeling of shame occurs when one feels that one has failed to live up to one's own self-image, but does not necessarily imply that one has harmed others. Feelings of shame typically have a bearing how one appears to the world at large; one "looks shamefaced". Self-accusation and feelings of regret are other related variants of the same thing. The stricter one's conscience, the more easily feelings of guilt occur.

Low self-esteem

Lack of self-confidence or low self-esteem is part of all depressive conditions, but feelings of guilt are associated with more "melancholic" types of depression and have also been shown to be an indicator of a stronger genetic component in depression. In psychotic depression, the feeling of guilt grows into self-accusatory delusions. In obsessive-compulsive disorders, it appears that the risk of being plagued by guilt is a key motivating factor behind many compulsive acts.

Feelings of guilt are also the most significant symptom in distinguishing depression from anxiety. Meanwhile, it has been claimed that feelings of guilt are linked to the strong emphasis on the notion of sin in the Christian tradition of the West. Asians are said to be more inclined to shame, and Africans to mistrust.

Melancholic depression

As the healthcare system has faced demands for greater efficiency, interest in subclassification of different types of depression has diminished. "Depressive episode" as defined in ICD-10 or "genuine depression" as defined in DSM-IV generally suffices as a diagnosis.

In the Swedish version of ICD-10, the possibility of defining a melancholic subtype has been omitted. However, current research, especially from Gordon Parker's team in Sydney, shows that the concept of melancholy is clinically relevant.

In fact, melancholic depression is a modernized variant of the type of depression that would have been termed "endogenous" in the 1960s. According to Parker, the most decisive difference between melancholic and non-melancholic depression is the occurrence of observed psychomotor disturbance (retardation, agitation and/or lack of interactivity); in other words, symptoms that can be observed during clinical examination, independent of those stated by the patient.

The theme of guilt is prominent in a large proportion of these patients, especially in those with psychotic tinges, but is also present in some cases of non-melancholic depression.

Treatment options

Melancholic depression responds better to ECT and tricyclic antidepressants than other types of depression, and its comorbodity patterns and prognoses are different. Important research is under way in this field, and it can be assumed that ICD-11 and DSM-V will bring important changes with regard to the nosological status of melancholy.

Rodrigo Mendoza: Psychiatric aspects

• Axis 1: Serious depressive episode with melancholic syndrome
• Axis 2: Histrionic and narcissistic personality traits
• Axis 3: Not recorded
• Axis 4: Extreme
• Axis 5: GAF = 20 (at worst), 65 (most recent maximum functional level), 85 (after treatment)
• Treatment: Self-imposed penance
• Result: Full remission but doubtful prognosis owing to lack of adjustment to reality

Mendoza has made a good living as a mercenary and from illegal slave trading, and has become accustomed to living with a sense of being invincible. This has reinforced his histrionic and narcissistic personality traits. When his self-esteem is then severely injured, he loses control completely, and his angry temper, coupled with his physical strength and martial training, has serious consequences. It seems that the crime he thus commits opens the doors of his well-stocked cupboard of guilt.

The stream of conscience that subsequently pours forth transforms him into a mutistic, almost stuporous melancholy sufferer with extreme psychomotor retardation, dressed moreover in the traditional penant's costume of sackcloth. He stops eating and exhibits all the signs of serious depression of the type that usually has psychotic dimensions, being afflicted with self-accusatory delusions. In this case, he is probably guilty of so much in real life that he needs no delusions.

Paradox

From a psychiatric point of view, this is a paradox that makes the portrayal problematical. Those affected by self-accusatory psychotic depression tend to inflate the significance of some minor misdeed of which they consider themselves guilty, while their conscience, strict by nature, has prevented them from ever committing any more serious offences.

In contrast, those who have committed serious offences generally have such an "accommodating" conscience that they are seldom affected by self-accusatory depressive conditions. In Mendoza's case, one might imagine that his past criminality failed to concern him on a personal level and thus was incapable of appealing to this system of emotions. Once the personal tragedy had set the system in motion, however, it could be fully activated.

A way forward

Mendoza's histrionic nature means that he "goes all the way" in his reaction patterns. Yet he himself is incapable of breaking this condition, and Father Gabriel takes it on himself to provide the patient with a way forward.

The penance on which they agree is symbolically related to the nature of the crime and the personality of the penitent: to carry the equipment of a warrior as a heavy burden, but without using it, and eventually to render it unusable, before devoting himself to the Jesuit order. The effect is powerful and comparable to that often seen with ECT treatment.

A key scene in the film is the moment when the burden of guilt eases and Mendoza can get on with his new life.

Penance

Catholic tradition makes a distinction between minor sins, which can be forgiven more or less automatically, and mortal sins, which require penance, i.e. a symbolic act in which the sinner publicly displays his regret and can then be forgiven. The early Christian Church operated on the principle that Church members should abstain from grave sins, and excluded anyone found guilty of committing such sins. This policy was very soon altered, and public penance introduced. This probably led to a faster increase in the number of followers.

In the Middle Ages, penance took on an increasing variety of forms of expression, and during times of plague, sects of extreme penitents, such as flagellants, could appear. The penance could also be formalized, one variation on the theme being indulgences - effectively a bribe paid to the Church.

Penance as psychiatric treatment

It is clear that various forms of penance must appeal strongly to the mindset of a severely depressed person. Feelings of guilt in the deeply depressed are often coupled with a sense that they ought to be punished. I have not yet managed to find any empirical research that has studied what the outcome might be if penance were tested as a treatment for depression.

It is doubtful whether today's research-ethics committees would permit such studies, which could not of course be conducted double-blind. The fact remains, though, that we must assume that a significant number of depression cases in history were subjected to this treatment, but no compilation of the results will ever be available.

Judging by the depiction in The Mission, this treatment would be worthy of closer evaluation. At the end of the day, however, this is only a movie.

Notes

1.

In his film The Killing Fields (1984), Roland Joffé had opened the world's eyes to events in Pol Pot's Cambodia, which was likewise an important message (and indeed a controversial one at the time).

2.

The Jesuits are an order of Catholic priests founded in 1540 by Ignatius Loyola. In 1749, 2,345 Jesuits were engaged in missionary work in South America, and in Paraguay alone, 113,716 native people were said to have been converted.

It may seem paradoxical that the leaders of the Church would want to stop this, but in the power politics of 18th-century Europe, the independent, influential and often idealistic Jesuits had increasingly become a thorn in the flesh of secular and ecclesiastical powers alike. From around 1750 onwards, they found it increasingly difficult to operate, and by 1773 the situation had reached the point where the Jesuit order was banned completely by the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church.

Only Russia, under Catherine the Great, and White Russia refused to follow Rome and allowed the Jesuits to continue their activities. The ban was subsequently lifted, and after 1814 the Jesuits were again able to operate with Rome's support. The 20th-century liberation theologians in Latin America were directly inspired by the work of the Jesuits.

3.

The legal status of the indigenous population at this time is interesting.

At an international court hearing in 1537, Pope Paul III confirmed that the native people were "descendents of Adam and Eve", the same as Europeans, and that it was therefore improper to keep them as slaves. He thereby placed himself at odds with the colonizers, who wanted to profit from the indigenous population.

The Spanish largely complied with the papal decree (concentrating instead on trade in African slaves, who were not covered by the decree), whereas the Portuguese openly defied Rome and continued to enslave native people in Latin America.