Roland Joffe\'s the Mission Provides

Roland Joffe's the Mission provides insight regarding conditions in Latin America during the eighteenth century. The film focuses on Rodrigo Mendoza, a mercenary and slaver who gradually comes to acknowledge the importance of life regardless of people's background. Through becoming familiarized with local tribes this individual comes to understand that Europeans are wrong in exploiting aboriginal tribes simply because they think differently. The film is meant to provide viewers with the opportunity to learn that it is essential for them to focus on trying to understand that all people are the same regardless of their background and that one should not be discriminated on account of his or her particularities.

The Mission teaches individuals in regard to how anyone can change in spite of the fact that the respective person is determined to maintain his thinking. Mendoza initially seems determined to exploit locals and does not care what happens to them as long as he gets paid for capturing them. However, the fact that he kills his brother and that he starts to believe that society is a cruel place influences him in becoming depressed and opens his mind. This makes it possible for Father Gabriel to intervene and address him while he is suffering greatly.

While religion itself does not actually have a positive effect on Mendoza, Father Gabriel's behavior and the fact that the religious individual is not hesitant about accepting him move the former slaver and influence him in trying to understand these people. Mendoza is virtually initiated at the time when he decides to join the mission, considering that he is persuaded by the fact that he is accepted.

Father Gabriel is acquainted with Mendoza's situation, but does not feel that he should discriminate him as a result of his past. This actually plays a great role in Mendoza's progress as a moral person and assists the individual in being better prepared to deal with the social order. One can practically say that he experiences a healing process as he becomes an active part of the Guarani community and as he comes to cooperate with individuals who he previously discriminated. He learns that force only needs to be used for doing good and that it is wrong for him to associate stereotypes with particular groups.