The Mission
Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine’s offbeat documentary probes the death of a 26-year-old missionary as he approached an indigenous people off the coast of India.
The one feature of this American documentary that counts in its favour is the novelty of its subject matter. In choosing to focus on the death of John Chau on North Sentinel Island in 2018 it tackles material which is strong in dramatic potential. Chau was in an evangelical Christian who grew up in America and who believed that his purpose in life was to contribute to God’s mission by seeking to find converts amongst people who knew nothing of the Bible. That sense of what he was born to do caused him to set out for the Andaman Islands off the coast of India and to land there on an island inhabited by the Sentinelese peoples, hunter gatherers cut off from the outside world and reputed to be violent to strangers. It was at their hands that at the age of twenty-six he died, a target for their arrows.
If some would declare Chau’s life to be that of a fool, others might well honour him as an idealistic martyr. Certainly it would be possible to have a film about him which specifically took either of these views. Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine, the directors of The Mission, have instead chosen to give us a film which includes voices both admiring and critical. That too is a workable method since it effectively invites individual viewers to draw their own conclusions. However, opting to tell John Chau’s story does offer challenges including the fact that, while relevant home movies and the like relating to earlier events in his life exist, there is no comparable material except a diary of his that can be drawn on when it comes to his arrival on North Sentinel Island.
But, if that posed a problem, it is nothing compared to the mishmash that has resulted from the way in which the directors have chosen to tell the story. As one would indeed expect new interview footage was shot for the film and we hear from a historian, Adam Goodheart, from a girl who became a close friend of John Chau and from various religious figures with strongly contrasted opinions including a former missionary who is notably critical. It is standard practice in documentaries for interviewees on their first appearance to be identified by a written note of their name and status. Not so here and, if that is initially unhelpful, even more so is the mix of styles as the narrative moves from John Chau’s home life to his increasingly evangelical stance and then to his decision to take what would turn out to be a fatal journey.
In the first half of the film what appear to be authentic pre-existing images seem to be mixed with reenactments while various movie extracts are incorporated to illustrate past events including even the 1931 King Kong! Properly specific to John Chau are the frequently heard words taken from his diaries or from his letters and read on the soundtrack by Lawrence Kao. Similarly, we hear the voice of David Shih quoting from a letter to the filmmakers written by John’s father, Patrick, who was also religious in outlook but not evangelical and opposed to what his son chose to do with his life. At times the film moves uneasily between these readings and voice-over comments by the interviewees. But there's yet another element which asserts itself at intervals throughout the film. I refer to the decision to illustrate much of John’s story by using animation.
Indeed, the climatic scenes when John Chau reaches the island are wholly dependent on being animated albeit with a climactic inclusion of some additional spoken dialogue. This results in such a confusion of styles that it disrupts any sense of a narrative with an involving character. Had the whole film been presented as an animated work or had the tale been offered as an enacted drama in the style of, say, Werner Herzog it might have come together as a piece to respect. Yet not even the utter inconsistency of style can prevent one from responding with interest to the real-life facts that emerge and recognising how conflicting individual responses to them might be. However, as a piece of film-making The Mission is only likely to appeal to those who love to find a documentary which forsakes traditional modes in the genre and who then acclaim anything different however ill-judged.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Featuring Levi Davis, Adam Goodheart, Dan Davis, Daniel Everett, Jimmy Shaw, Cassie Simons, Arin Okada, T.N. Pandit, Cameron Silsbee, Pam Arlund. Mary Ho, and the voices of Lawrence Kao and David Shih.
Dir Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine, Pro Jonathan Chinn, Simon Chinn, Jesse Moss, Amanda McBaine and Will Cohen, Screenplay Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss, Ph Thorsten Thielow, Ed Aaron Wickenden, Music Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans, Animation Dir Jason Carpenter.
Lightbox/Mile End Films-Altitude Film Entertainment.
103 mins. USA. 2023. UK Rel: 17 November 2023. Cert. 12A.
