Review: 'The Mission' recounts, with remarkable even-handedness, a young Christian's fatal attempt to preach to an isolated people
There’s a nice sense of irony, or maybe karma, in the documentary “The Mission,” the story of a young Christian missionary whose zealous pursuit of his purpose led to his death — because, like this young man in his rowboat, the viewer also has to account for what they are bringing with them as they watch.
The facts of the case are these: In November 2018, John Chau, an American man of Chinese heritage, was killed on North Sentinel Island off the coast of India — a place where the Indigenous hunter-gatherers live without contact from outsiders, and react to intruders with bows and arrows.
Directors Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss, a married couple whose previous movie was the 2020 documentary “Boys State,” spend the bulk of the movie showing us how Chau got there, physically and spiritually. The movie traces the origins of his evangelical fervor, and how he found mentors — particularly a mission organizer at Oral Roberts University (who was not interviewed for the film) — who encouraged him to bring Jesus’ story to all people everywhere.
McBaine and Moss interview several people who knew Chau: High school friends, college instructors, National Park Service employees he worked with, and a couple of pastors.
There are two interviews with people who didn’t know Chau. One, Adam Goodheart, an author who wrote about the Sentinelese — and once got close enough to the island to feel an arrow fly past him. The other is Daniel Everett, a linguist who as a young missionary in 1978 lived among the Pirahã people of the Amazon, and now warns against the presumption that Westerners can give isolated groups anything that they want or need.
Two other voices are prominent, and they belong to actors speaking over animation. One reads excerpts from a letter written by Chau’s father to the filmmakers. The other reads passages from Chau’s journals, which his family allowed the filmmakers to make public.
There are many ways to think about Chau. Was he a reckless young man who ignored repeated warnings — and Indian law — by attempting to set foot on the island? Was he a selfish and arrogant Westerner who thought he knew what the Sentinelese needed better than they did? Was he brainwashed by the evangelical Christian leaders he met?
The fascinating thing about “The Mission” is that McBaine and Moss are astonishingly even-handed, allowing for all those perspectives to be given consideration. Then it’s up to the viewer to sort out which version of Chau seems most likely — and, at the same time, consider their own biases about faith, colonialism and free will.
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‘The Mission’
★★★
Opens Friday, October 27, in theaters. Rated PG-13 for full nudity, some violent content, thematic elements and sexual references. Running time: 103 minutes.