Another film we're cramming into the category of "Thanksgiving": AT PLAY IN THE FIELDS OF THE LORD. Tom Berenger's cultural appropriation epic which is, weirdly, not as bad as one would imagine.
Oh boy. Here we are. After watching the scene out of context a few weeks ago, we've found ourselves in the indelible position of having to watch this 189-minute epic to cover on the podcast: AT PLAY IN THE FIELDS OF THE LORD, Héctor Babenco's adventure/drama/trauma film from 1991.
Don't mistake Ryan's excitement to cover this film purely on the basis of Tom Berenger's visage. We can't stress enough how messed up it is. And to others, there's some other stuff in this film that's about as (if not more) messed up. The evident cultural appropriation is 'baffling' but this is also a tale of modernity encroaching on native civilization and the damage that eventually causes, led squarely by a group of naive, judgmental white Christian missionaries. As you might expect, it doesn't exactly go as everyone hoped.
"What were they thinking?", you might be expressing, which would be very appropriate. Trust us, this film is a ride.
Ryan: Don't say anything for 2 seconds. Apocalypse now.
Laura: Hello there. Welcome to On the BiTTE, the podcast that uncovers full frontal male nudity in cinema. My name is Laura and I am joined by my co host, Ryan.
Ryan: Oh, shit. Have we got something for you.
Laura: We do? Oh, we so unfortunately do. We are here to talk about the 1991 drama At Play in the Fields of the Lord.
Ryan: It is, um, a mouthful.
Ryan: That, uh, title.
Laura: And so is the film at 189 minutes.
Ryan: Yeah, this is the longest film we've covered, but funnily enough, it is not the worst film we have covered. Uh uh, that's in the cut.
Ryan: Still.
Laura: We'Re really stretching the boundaries of, uh, Thanksgiving films, um, because there aren't a lot like we explained in the last episode, that and I would also.
Ryan: Kind of say that this isn't really a Thanksgiving film.
Laura: This is 100% not a Thanksgiving film.
Ryan: No, this isn't a Thanksgiving film. But I think because of how outrageous some of the things are in this movie, I felt like we could not pass this up. And if we want to make any, I don't know, parallels to the content of this film and I guess Thanksgiving in general, I don't know. I'm not really particularly familiar with that part of history.
Laura: Well, um, I'll try to connect it in as short a way as possible, I guess. So let's say you have the first Thanksgiving the first Thanksgiving story is basically a myth where you have people coming together, where you have the settlers or the Pilgrims and the native people coming together and they're sharing a meal.
Ryan: I know that.
Laura: And, um, they're becoming friends. Right? I doubt that's how it happened. You have the native people that are helping the Pilgrims and the merchant settlers.
Ryan: That sounds very similar to that story set during the First World War where, uh, the Germans and I think the French or the British or whatever, they stopped fighting each other to play footballs, uh, in no man's land.
Laura: Yeah. Okay.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: Whether or not that's true or not, I don't know. But that seems to be a very similar story.
Laura: Right. Okay.
Ryan: Not even death will get in the way of celebration. And that's kind of how we do it in Scotland as well. Um, not even death will get in the way of a pint.
Laura: Well, I don't know. The native people of this country were thanked by genocide and disease, which is basically what happens in this film. So, uh, that's my parallel, is the thanks of genocide and disease from white people.
Ryan: If you're a white person who's decided to persecute somebody else because they're different from you and you end up getting, I don't know, yellow fever from it, then so be it.
Laura: The blackwater fever.
Ryan: There is some shit in this movie that we are going to uncover, I think, as well.
Ryan: I would also preface this with the.
Ryan: Fact that, um, we might bring up some of our views on religion in this one because it's so prevalent and it's such an integral part of the story that's being told in this movie.
Laura: Absolutely.
Ryan: That if you have any level of sensitivity towards that, I'm only going to apologize now, but I'm not going to apologize later.
Laura: Yeah, that's fine.
Laura: Well, just so that people know what this film is about, I will drop this incredibly long letterboxed synopsis.
Ryan: I honestly cannot wait.
Laura: Don't fucking we will discuss because yeah.
Ryan: I mean, it's so long, we might not even need to speak about the film at all.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: We'll just stop it right after this and just turn it off.
Ryan: I think so.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: After five minutes.
Ryan: Perfect episode.
Laura: It'll save you as much time as possible.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: And it might save us the amount of grief we might receive from actually talking about.
Ryan: So okay.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Martin and Hazel Quarrier are small town fundamentalist missionaries sent to the jungles of South America to convert the Indians. Yeah. That's how it starts.
Ryan: Oh, fuck.
Laura: Okay, here we go. Their remote mission was previously run by the Catholics before the natives murdered them all. Yeah. They are sent by the pompous Leslie Hubin, who runs the missionary effort in the area, but who seems more concerned about competing with his Catholic rivals than in the Indians themselves. Still going?
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Uh, Hazel is terrified of the Indians, while Martin is fascinated. Soon, American pilot Louis Moon joins the Indian tribe, but is attracted by Leslie's young wife, Andy. Can the interaction of these characters and cultures and the advancing bulldozers of civilization avoid disaster?
Ryan: Right.
Laura: That, um, doesn't work. It says so much, but doesn't actually say anything about the film at all.
Ryan: It's so empty. It's the most amount of empty writing we've had in the synopsis for any of the films we've ever covered.
Ryan: Useless.
Laura: The tagline's even worse.
Ryan: Oh, great.
Laura: Uh, but maybe it's not worse. It goes an adventure beyond the limits of civilization, faith and passion.
Ryan: Okay.
Ryan: Well, that just sounds like something that folk came up in a room within 10 seconds and they were like, that'll.
Laura: Do limits, um, of civilization. I disagree. Passion. I heartily disagree. Faith. Totally.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: Um, uh, I think because we've just said the synopsis, let's go into the cast list.
Ryan: The cast list is relatively quite stacked. And then I think we'll kind of get into some of the things I'm going to say.
Laura: I feel like this is real heavy kind of Oscar stacking with your cast, where you're really trying to get those nominations and get the people in the seats.
Ryan: I mean, uh, the director of this movie and obviously I think the producer as well, because I think the producer it's Saul Zantz. I think, honestly, everyone's going to have to I'm going to apologize for if I butcher anyone's name or anything like that or any of the names of the films of the director as well. You're just genuinely going to have to have to forgive me for it. But Saul Zantz, who was the producer, had been trying to make this film since the book was published in the 1960s. And then eventually, obviously was able to obtain the rights for almost more than what the film, uh, finally made at the box office.
Laura: What?
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: I'm not even joking. It's like 1.4 million.
Ryan: He bought the rights for Holy Moly.
Ryan: Because I think originally it was owned the story, the book I can't remember the guy's name. Second name is Matherson, I think it is Peter Matherson, uh, who wrote the original book. Um, obviously, this was back in a time where studios, they were just grabbing as many intellectual properties as they could for whatever sum of money in the eventuality that they could obviously translate these pieces of work into film. But, uh, all Play in the Fields of the Lord was one of those films, or at least one of those pieces of media that was deemed unfilmable. Um, and for the most part, it almost feels like it's unfilmable and certainly as bloated as the film obviously became.
Ryan: But anyway, the film's obviously made in 91, and it's directed by Hector Bibenko.
Laura: I haven't got to the cast list yet.
Ryan: I know, I know. We're kind of getting into it.
Ryan: But let's do the cast list first.
Ryan: Because you started talking about Oscar and Academy consideration.
Laura: Because find out why.
Ryan: Well, yeah, Hector Babenko is one of, uh, that kind of caliber of director I was just going to kind of point out there. Obviously, I kind of went on a bit of a tangent, but anyway, continue on.
Laura: Okay, so top build in this film is Tom Behringer.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Uh, now, I don't even know if I want to bring it up right now. He plays Lewis Moon.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Who is an American, but he is a half Cheyenne, the character, not Tom Behringer. Tom Behringer is a white man.
Ryan: M from the articles that I read researching the film, his character is a white educated Native American.
Laura: Right.
Ryan: So he is brought up in a culture and maybe predisposed or indoctrinated into white culture. So he's a bit of a conflict from obviously being of a certain ethnicity to then being told, obviously, things that are contradictory to the history of his ethnicity. So, uh, he is constantly in conflict with himself. He has, like, a drink problem and all these other sorts of things. He is a fascinating character if you ignore the obvious cultural appropriation which is going on.
Laura: Yeah. But he is adding to a long list of white people who have played Native characters or people outside of their own race.
Ryan: Let's put it this way. They brown his skin and they make him wear contacts where he has darker eyes.
Laura: He also puts on a voice.
Ryan: And he also has a voice which I can only explain in any level of political correctness as, uh it sounds quite thick Canadian, you think, but it's obviously meant to be Native American.
Laura: I think it sounds it's only one.
Ryan: Step removed from any number of John Wayne westerns that's the voice he's putting on that is 100% the voice he.
Laura: Is putting on, where he uses heavy consonants. He articulates every syllable, every letter of yes.
Ryan: It's weird, it's strange, and it's not good.
Ryan: Um.
Ryan: If you can easily impersonate that kind of voice, I feel like it is verging on being parody, which also verges on being relatively quite offensive.
Laura: It's a bit of an embarrassment every time he's on screen.
Ryan: A little bit.
Laura: It's uncomfortable.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: And it's not as though they didn't have people available to play that part.
Ryan: Oh, there's tons.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: It's absolutely it is what it is. I mean, I have a list of other people that have know, uh, native people. Like Rock Hudson did see who else did it. Burt Lancaster did it. M. Oh boy. Audrey Hepburn did.
Ryan: Yeah. Mhm.
Laura: Johnny Depp. That was a really bad one.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: Tonto. Well, they should have known better.
Ryan: Ah.
Ryan: By the time they did the High.
Ryan: Hole, silver, whatever the fuck it was. The Lone Ranger.
Ryan: Yeah. Arnie. Hammer army. Hammer army. The Cannibal.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: Um, that guy the guy who likes to eat people.
Laura: Listen, don't, um kink shame.
Laura: Okay, so the rest of the cast goes. John Lithgow, daryl Hanna, aiden Quinn, kathy fucking Bates and M. Tom Waits.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: That's awesome.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: You look at that and you go, hell yeah.
Ryan: I'm in for heavy cast. Yeah, it's a real heavy cast.
Laura: And they all are doing incredible work. Everyone's going above and beyond. I don't know about Tom Behringer. I don't know what to say. Incredible work. I think Kathy Bates is amazing. I love it when John Lithgow yells maybe Daryl Hannah, not so much. Aiden Quinn's. Fine.
Ryan: Well, Daryl Hannah's doing what she's always mean.
Laura: To be fair, he's not going to win any awards.
Ryan: No.
Ryan: Well, Daryl Hannah's in the movie as.
Ryan: Well, because she's super attractive as well.
Ryan: And there's an occasion where she gets naked as well, and we see there.
Laura: I was reading that apparently Daryl Hannah said to Kathy Bates that she's not totally comfortable getting naked in this film. And Kathy Bates said, Why do you think you're here? Yeah, well, Kathy Bates also gets naked in this.
Ryan: Does. Yeah, she does.
Ryan: She does get naked.
Laura: Um, the role that Daryl Hanna played was, uh, originally given to Laura Dern, actually.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: Which I could see that. But there is a scene where you.
Ryan: Can see where their casting's going, though. It's kind of like, babes, you see that blonde? Just put her in the movie.
Ryan: She'll do that's.
Ryan: Not to say that they're not like Laura Dern, and obviously Daryl Hannah aren't good actors.
Ryan: They are.
Ryan: But the role doesn't have much in the way of, uh, depth. I mean, effectively, that role is a prop role.
Laura: She doesn't really have any growth or an arc to her character.
Ryan: No, she's a plot.
Ryan: Yeah, well, she's a key plot point. Like when there's an eventual, uh, meeting between Tom Behringer and, uh, uh, Daryl Hanna, that's kind of integral to the development of basically the fall of the empire, I guess, uh, the civilization that is depicted in the film. Um, but, uh, I would struggle to say that everyone's bringing their A game. I think they're bringing their game.
Ryan: But it's kind of also marred slightly by each of the characters has their own agenda. And they also kind of come with.
Ryan: Their own level of prejudice.
Ryan: Because Tom Waits is effectively playing, uh, a very angry Jewish man who's relatively I mean, he's racist, like, all the time, almost everything that comes out of his mouth. And even when he starts talking about Tom Behringer as obviously a Native American.
Laura: We call him a half breed.
Ryan: Cheyenne yeah, pretty much. Uh, and refers to the don't you.
Laura: Think that was out of love stuff?
Ryan: Would you mean that out of love they're best friends. Yeah, of course.
Ryan: Yeah, I guess so.
Ryan: I mean, if that's the kind of best friend well, the problem is that obviously well, this isn't the problem, but the issue was always kind of years and years and years ago, um, you would have certain people of a certain ethnicity, for example, who were given pet names by white people. Um, and it just kind of ended up falling into a casual conversation as if it was like affectionate, but is deeply rooted in white supremacy and racism. Yeah, but it is of a different time where I guess you could gloss it over, but obviously now it's not acceptable.
Ryan: You can't really do that.
Ryan: And there's always going to be someone on the other side of the fence who will be kind of just like, well, hold on. You can't just call him that.
Laura: You can't just paint his skin that color.
Ryan: You can't paint his skin that color. And you can't decide that if you're going to have a friend who is not white, decide to give him a pet name because that's supposedly funny to you.
Ryan: That's just racist.
Laura: I think what we're trying to say is the film is racist. There's a lot of racist things happening in this film.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: I mean, I do worry. I do worry about Tom Behringer's casting. And this is primarily 100% the reason I wanted to cover this film was.
Ryan: Because of how fucked up this stuff is.
Ryan: And even for 91, I'm like, this is skirting like some fucking bullshit.
Laura: Yeah. Well, when I found I had known that there was nudity in this film and so I wanted to go back through and check. I wanted to make sure my T's were crossed and my I's were dot.
Ryan: Yeah, you said it correctly.
Laura: I did. Yeah. But I'm going through and I'm scanning through this movie making sure that I've got it all correct, that there is nudity in this film. And when I saw it when I saw it and saw Tom Behringer, I yelled, you came running over, and I had to show you immediately.
Ryan: It's unreal.
Ryan: Yeah. Ah.
Ryan: It's unreal.
Ryan: Um, it just doesn't happen as much anymore.
Laura: And so it's still quite shocking when you see a character playing I don't know, just a white man playing, and they're painted up like it's unexpected.
Ryan: This is a film that probably could not be made today.
Laura: No, it could be made today.
Ryan: I genuinely don't think it can be. No, I don't think you don't think.
Laura: You could cast this properly?
Ryan: No, I think you could cast this properly. What I'm trying to tell you is that because of the thing is, the original book, the 1960s book, has so many stark, um, comparisons to even just the modern day, like, contemporary times as it is right now, as if nothing has moved forward and nothing has actually changed. That I feel like to make a film like that today would be particularly incendiary. And I'm not even talking about the racism aspects of this movie. I'm talking about the religious aspects of this movie, which are the very crux.
Ryan: Uh, of this story.
Ryan: And I just don't think it would fly today. It would be too much of a risk. Folk would be picketing picketing screenings of it. It would be insane. Absolutely insane. Christian fundamentalism is very much on your fucking doorstep. So at the same time, I'd be like, no, you wouldn't touch this fucking film with a barge pole on a million years.
Laura: Okay, well, I do maybe want to dive into that a little bit more in a bit. But we need to talk about Hector Babenko.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Before we get too deep.
Ryan: So good old Hector.
Ryan: So Hector Babenko is an Argentinian Brazilian film director, screenwriter, producer, and actor. Um, unfortunately, he only just died in 2016. Um, from what I was reading, and just kind of contracate a wee bit, he'd been suffering from poor health since 94. And in 94, he was battling, uh, lymphatic cancer, I guess that's lymph node cancer, which is kind of like one of the worst cancers to get.
Ryan: So from 94, he was in relative kind of poor health up until about, I think, 2014, 2015.
Ryan: I think he was making a film with Willem Dafoe or something like that.
Laura: Whoa.
Ryan: But his last film, which I don't.
Ryan: Know if it's the same one that.
Ryan: I have on my list, but anyway, he was making a film, but there's.
Ryan: Certain kind of parallels within the narrative.
Ryan: Of the last film he was making was that he kind of knew he was on Death Store, which is a shame.
Ryan: Um, and he's a prolific filmmaker.
Ryan: Ah.
Ryan: I would say, um, I've seen, or at least I know of a couple of his other films, and I think.
Ryan: He'S a director who we're going to revisit again. But I guess my excitement for obviously.
Ryan: This movie meant that we're not kind of doing his body of work as like a series.
Ryan: And elsewhere. I think his series of films is obviously quite dense. But let's go through his releases. And obviously, I apologize for any of the names if I butcher any of these names. And these are the English release titles. Because obviously these films did release in, uh, South America as well. So in 1975 we have King of the Night. In 1977, we have Lucio Flavio. I'm assuming that is correct. In 1980 we have is this I mean, I hope this isn't piote, but is it P-I-X-O-T-E. Is that piote?
Laura: I don't know.
Ryan: Let's say exote.
Ryan: Let's just say that.
Ryan: So that was in 1980. In 1985. This is a film I am familiar with, which is Kiss of the Spider Woman.
Laura: I really want to watch that movie.
Ryan: And that is also the same film.
Ryan: That got him Best Director Academy Award.
Ryan: Nomination, um, in 1985, which is our year. After that, in 1987, he made Iron Weed. And then obviously, we get to 1991, where he made At Play in the Fields of the Lord. But to kind of COVID him a little bit more extensively later on, he does Foolish Heart in 1998, Karen Dero, which is a film that I've not seen, but I want to see. And I've always seen the COVID of, and I saw it in the shops. He made that back in 2003. In 2007, he made a film called The Past. In 2014, he made Words with Gods, which I'm assuming is the Willem defoe one. But his last film is ah, no.
Laura: My Hindu friend is his last film. I know that's a Willem defoe movie.
Ryan: Oh, is it? Well, that's what I was going to say, because he had a film entitled My Hindu Friend. Um, other than that, he has some television, he has some documentaries and stuff like that. But other than that, we're kind of focusing more on, uh, his mainline filmography.
Laura: That's it. Yeah. Here we are.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: There's not really much else to kind of say about him. He was just a prolific filmmaker who had a career and unfortunately died due to sickness.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: No drama. He just went out there. He made films. And the films, if we take this film for an example, they're not bad.
Laura: This movie, I wasn't expecting to like it just based on what we've been talking about.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: Well, I mean, I was expecting it to be a fucking train wreck.
Laura: Yeah, really? Definitely.
Ryan: Because we'd seen it, obviously in bits and bobs. Because when you do well, we've already kind of spoke about it, like how you look for dicks in films and stuff like that. You've got twin monitors and you're sweating and it's hard work.
Ryan: Uh, yeah.
Ryan: It's alarming to see the M Lord's work oh, god. Uh, yeah.
Ryan: Um.
Laura: I don't know.
Laura: Where do you want to start? You want to start at the beginning? We already talked a lot about Tom Behringer, and we're going to keep being uncomfortable about that. I don't know. The first time you see him, tom Waits and Tom Behringer roll up in a plane. There's a bunch of people hanging out at a post office. And this is where the initial conflict comes into play. Because the military man takes their papers.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: And is basically blackmailing them to bomb a tribe of people in the rainforest in order to get them to move out from where they've been living. So that gold miners can come in.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: And mine the area.
Ryan: Pretty much.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: There's a couple of different storylines, obviously, going on, but we were introduced to this world through Tom Waites and Tom Behringer. So Twtb, um, bring us in in their plane house. Um, and in the book. I mean, I don't know if it's at all clear in the film, but supposedly Tom Behringer's character was also a gun runner at some point. So these two guys are nefarious individuals.
Laura: They do keep calling Behringer a murderer, like a cold blooded killer.
Ryan: Well, uh, you don't see that he's got a troubled you don't see yeah. You don't really see him murder anybody until near the very end, like three to hours later.
Laura: He doesn't want to.
Ryan: He doesn't want to. No. But, ah um, yeah, like I say, his character, uh, goes through some changes. But to be fair, we were introduced to them. We were introduced to the world through them. Um, and effectively, this, um, is when we are finally introduced to the mission, I guess.
Laura: Yes. You have the missionaries, and John Lithgow is the head. Daryl Hannah is his wife. And then we meet Aiden Quinn and Kathy Bates and their son Billy, who are taking over for they're taking over the mission?
Ryan: They're taking over the mission because the previous occupants of the shack, uh, for the mission, uh, were murdered.
Laura: Yeah, they sure were. And, I mean, what better way and what better place to bring your young?
Ryan: Uh.
Ryan: Mean, I'm not saying that was as alarming as, uh, Tom Behringer's, uh, browned up body, but certainly when you start seeing, uh, this stout, chubby little boy, like, wandering around the Amazon rainforest, you kind of just are like, I don't know. Also, we'll get back to Billy at.
Laura: Some point because I have a lot to say about Billy.
Ryan: It's honestly fucking horrific.
Ryan: But the thing is, you're introduced to these characters. Obviously, Let Go is kind of like the ringleader, and Daryl Hannah is kind of there, but she's awfully quiet. And obviously, Kathy Bates is, like, chewing at everything.
Laura: Oh, yeah.
Ryan: And obviously, Aidan Quinn, uh, obviously he is the reason why this family's there in the first place. Um, but the overall feeling and I guess this shouldn't come as any surprise to anybody is that a bunch of white people go to, uh, this encampment, obviously in South America, and immediately everything is dirty, everything is filthy, everyone is a fucking savage. All this sort of thing, all this stuff. So the Christian Judgmentals fucking walk into town and they're going to tell you how to live your life.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: That's 100% what it is.
Ryan: And, uh, that is what you'd expected.
Ryan: To swallow for at least the next 2 hours and 50 minutes.
Laura: That they're terrible. They're terrible from the get go. John Lithgow totally sucks. He's awful. Cassie is horrible. But I don't really love her anyway, because as soon as you see her, as you see as soon as you see Kathy Bates name pop up on the screen, you know she's going to turn it to eleven and you know it's going to be a goddamn delight.
Ryan: And she does turn it up to eleven.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: Uh, well, she's just kind of like, well, these idiots don't know god because they're idiots. They don't speak our language. How would they ever understand?
Laura: They got their boobs out.
Ryan: They're never getting to heaven.
Ryan: Yeah. Uh.
Ryan: Christianity in a fucking nutshell. But, uh, I don't know.
Ryan: Out of all of this, you get to see Tom Waits feed a toucan.
Laura: You do.
Ryan: And did you fucking awesome.
Laura: Did you see his collection of fishnet shirts?
Ryan: No, I didn't.
Laura: You didn't notice?
Ryan: No, I didn't really notice several different.
Laura: Colors of fishnet t shirts that he wore.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: I loved it. You don't really see those too much anymore. I don't know. I thought it was a great fashion choice. He had a lot of nice tropical shirts.
Ryan: Okay.
Ryan: Well, yeah, no, he does have that. He has that kind of like, um you know who you reminded me of? You reminded me of Indiana Jones as pilot in the first Raiders. Like in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Okay, that's what you reminded me of. He kind of had that same sort of, uh, vibe ah. Kind of going on, um, like he might be raiding a tomb, uh, with somebody. Um, yeah.
Laura: Not enough Tom Waits in this movie at all.
Ryan: Well, the thing is, well, he doesn't go to the Encampment, so the minute he doesn't go to the mission Encampment, he's still stuck in the town, um, without his papers. Um, so he does kind of effectively disappear from the story at one.
Laura: Tom. We have a whole interaction with Tom Behringer, who's getting drunk and drinking ayahuasca and starting to hallucinate. And then you have Aiden Quinn.
Ryan: Well, look, I'm still only just here I was trying to figure out who said this line, because I want to say it like crazy. It's like I've never fornicated before in my life, but I don't know who said it. I think it might have been Tom Waits.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Because Lithco says, yours is the plague of blasphemy and fornication.
Ryan: He's like, yeah, I've never fornicated before in my life.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: There you go.
Ryan: Well, I remember when Aiden Quinn and stuff first come in and they're like walking through the town and obviously Kathy Bates is calling everybody dirty. Um, John Lifko goes, uh, we're going to be staying at the Anaconda. Aiden quinn goes the anaconda. Oh, yeah.
Laura: That's so weird.
Ryan: That's really strange. Yeah, well, I don't know. It's like anything that refers to a fucking snake or something that's like thick like a snake. I'm just assuming that even if you're Christian, you're probably referring to your cock.
Ryan: So I don't know.
Laura: Yeah, why not?
Ryan: Uh, well, I don't know.
Laura: If you think about the idea of a mission and you think about Christian missionaries going out and they're trying to spread the word of God, it's hard because I think at the core of a mission is good intent. And I think that Christianity at its core is based on good intentions, but then has been twisted time after time after time by people who are trying to twist it into their own agenda.
Ryan: I mean, I would say that as, uh, people ourselves, we've obviously grown up in being brought up in a Christian society. Um, and I feel like Christianity just as a whole has some very important and very realistic moral principles that everyone should probably abide by. I mean, that's certainly how it felt like for me, at least, back home is like the state and stuff.
Laura: Uh.
Ryan: You'Re all living by the same set of rules, where you're not cheating on your wife and you're not murdering anybody. That kind of makes perfect sense to me. But I guess it's the cherry picking and it's the bastardization of the words and the Bible. And certainly that is very true. And I feel like if that's something that we kind of take on board, you take that and then you weaponize it. Which is what I feel happens in this movie, to the point where it's like, well, if you're not going to believe this, then you're a lesser person than I am.
Laura: Right. And just judging other people on the way that they live and their customs and their traditions is bad. That's not good to do. And to be fair, in a baseline sense, that's not Christian to judge other people on how they live their lives. Um, no, Behringer says he says it in the movie. He says to Aidan Quinn, he goes, the Lord made Indians the way they are. Who are you people to make them?
Ryan: Mhm.
Ryan: I would, I would wholeheartedly was this was probably the moment in the movie where it really kind of drew me in because, again, we're dealing with the sight of Tom Behringer, um, as he is, and you're like, oh fuck. But then obviously when he starts talking some fundamental sense because certainly there's an understanding that the world itself and world and culture and things is that, uh, it's a rich tapestry of behavior. And races and cultures and tradition and stuff that is, uh, there are things out there I will never understand and have no comprehension for, but that's perfectly fine. I don't need to. It's just something that I don't have to have any part in.
Ryan: But I guess the way that these missionaries, um, are kind of going about their business is that the main aim is about homogenizing, um, and kind of homogenizing their belief system onto a culture that's not really built for it or has any intention of wanting to have any part of it.
Laura: Yeah, they don't want it.
Ryan: No. But certainly, as we see, if you force it on them enough, um, some will adopt it just purely out of a desperation for some level of belief in, say, like, the dire circumstances that they might be in. I mean, there's another movie very similar to this, um, called Silence that was made by Martin Scorsese back in 2016 about missionaries who went to Japan and found that that was just never going to work. And it was never going to work.
Laura: No.
Ryan: And it led to massacre and murder.
Laura: It's stupid. I don't know. I don't want to make this into religion. I don't want to make this into, like, a political thing, but people just need to leave everyone else alone.
Ryan: Yes, there's a meddling of the white.
Ryan: Race that I feel like, uh, that's.
Laura: What'S going to happen in this film if we bring it back to the movie, because that's what ends up happening. But we'll get there. We haven't even gotten to the dick scene, which is coming.
Ryan: But at least this kind of helps to back up the fact that some of the stuff that Behringer says in this scene, in this moment, and he's already dealing with a bunch of conflict, just culturally and just the way he treats himself as part Native American and how he views Native Americans in general, um, which is incredibly, uh, disparaging. I think that would be the nicest word to put, um, of. I like the idea that when he talks to Aidan Quinn about his faith is that faith is something that is.
Laura: It just that's where all the problems come. Mean, anytime you have a movie where Christian missionaries go in and try to impart their religion, does it ever go well? No.
Ryan: I mean, in history, it didn't go well at all.
Laura: So there you go. Yeah, but there is that scene after where where Behringer is so drunk, and he's, like, vomiting, and he's on the hallucinogens, right? And he starts howling. He starts howling and making those oh, just these noises that are so uncomfortable. And Tom, um, waits, kicks him out of the little flat that they're living in.
Ryan: Well, he's howling and doing all sorts of things. And then there is at some point where he's at the dock of the piers. Like, if you've seen the depiction of Native Americans in a Western from the 1940s or the 1950s, and you hear that kind of I don't know if I want to call it like a yodel, but Behringer starts doing that and.
Laura: It'S very kind of it's so weird.
Ryan: Alarming.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: I think he's it's, it's trying to show he's having a connection, uh, with the Naruna tribe that they saw, and he's just having a conflict because he was asked to bomb them.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: He's having issues, which is obviously you don't bomb.
Ryan: He was the thing is, I think I read it in the Roger Ebert review. This is after they've already gone in the initial bombing run, where they didn't drop any bombs and he just turned straight around yeah. And decided he was going to come back.
Laura: Bad idea.
Ryan: So the prevalent image of the movie is of, I guess of, let's say an indigenous tribe member, um, with a bow and arrow trying to shoot down the plane, but it's silhouetted against him on the ground. So it's like he's trying to shoot down the plane with his bow and arrow against the sunlight. So obviously it creates this shadow against him and it becomes effectively the eponymous image of what the movie is trying to depict, or at least that's what I kind of gathered.
Laura: Uh, um.
Ryan: It'S the poster image, it's the COVID of the book, like now, obviously, um, yeah, I think, uh, it's that image that basically tells Behringer we can't go ahead with bombing them, because he ends up getting some level of kind of like moral backbone and decides, yeah, maybe this isn't a great idea.
Laura: Fair.
Ryan: Yeah. The thing is, it's like trying to swap flies with dynamite. I mean, that's effectively what they're trying to do.
Laura: I mean, it's ridiculous. It's a ridiculous kind of plot point. Go out there so you can have these defunct papers back. I'm sure they could fly without the papers. Who cares?
Ryan: Yeah, well, I think well, again, the general, uh, is obviously trying to find, uh, any which way possible to, uh, get his agenda. I mean, effectively, that's what it is. Um yeah, I put in my notes. Long plane.
Laura: Long plane.
Laura: It looks like Tom Waits took a little nap.
Ryan: He did.
Ryan: He looked like he was a little bit tired.
Laura: I feel like we should start calling him Moon rather than Behringer.
Ryan: Well, no, I feel like it's just playing into part of the issue that we have with Behringer playing a Native American.
Laura: Well, I don't know, it comes into play. Moon. Moon.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: Well, no, I mean well, I mean, I like where this film kind of starts to go once that starts to happen.
Laura: But anyway, my favorite part is coming up, so sorry, sorry, go ahead.
Ryan: Well, no, I mean what do you mean, the favorite bit? As in like, he stole the plane favorite bit.
Laura: Yeah. Okay, so Tom Behringer steals the plane because he is going to, uh, apparently he's going to go out there. He leaves Tom Waits in town, takes the plane, and the missionaries, like John Lithgow and everyone are back in town calling him over the radio. Know, you don't even have fuel, dude. You got to come back. You don't need any fuel. You're going to get lost out there. And he then goes on to drop the titular line of the film two times.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Two times, baby. Mhm I'm at play in the fields of the Lord.
Ryan: Yeah, I think that's awesome. Well, I mean, when you see the title of the film just as a title of a film, you're like, that's a mouthful. But then when you hear it, let's say, within the context of his character and where he's going at that point, because, I mean, this is also after he's almost tried to kill himself, and Tom Waits on that bombing mission by crashing into a mountain.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: So he's a little bit self destructive.
Ryan: Let'S put it that way.
Laura: Definitely.
Ryan: Yes. Um, so he's just going to fly his plane out into anywhere, but I think his predestination was going to be this encampment. So, um, what we get to see is, uh, a skydive.
Laura: He jumps out of the plane. Dude. He pops on a parachute and just dives out of the plane and lands in the river. Strips off all of his clothes, I guess, in order to kind of come to the Nairuna tribe. Uh, unencumbered. I am no threat. I am here. I am naked. You know that I am not a threat to you whatsoever.
Ryan: Because he is carrying a gun. Yeah, he is carrying a gun. So he decides to hide the gun oh, right.
Laura: In his little pack of clothes.
Ryan: Well, here's the thing. The minute he takes his clothes off, he never puts those clothes back on again. So just bear that in mind.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: This comes in 46 minutes and 39 seconds into the film.
Ryan: So good.
Laura: And he is dark ass naked.
Ryan: He is as naked as the day he was born. He is completely naked. But I like the build up to this, and I like the fact that it's so incredibly long as well. And they don't hide anything. No, there's not a lot of close ups in this movie. A lot of it is these quite big, sweeping kind of wides to meds, like developing shots as well. So, I mean, you see everything. I mean, that's it. But he lands, obviously, in the jungle. He's met by members of the tribe who effectively, he's walking in a direction they kind of guide him in to the encampment. And yeah. Uh uh. As if he is presenting himself to the tribe. That's where we see everything head to toe. Every single little.
Laura: Don'T know. I don't want to say Kudos, Tom.
Ryan: Behringer, but, you know, I mean, he performs it. He does it. He gets it done.
Laura: He sure does.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: He does some very questionable things in this film. But he does go out there and commits.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: He's also surrounded by very scantily dressed and also partially nude, um, individuals in the tribe as well. I mean, there is not a single booby covered in the entirety of this tribe.
Laura: Well, no, because, uh, it makes sense for what it is. I mean, he goes out there and it tries to integrate himself into this tribe of people. It's interesting how well he makes himself at home right away. I mean, there's an initial kind of conflict there.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: I don't know if they're really digging it too much when he shows up.
Ryan: No.
Laura: But pretty quickly.
Ryan: Well, there's definitely a rival immediately when he arrives. Um, there's a rival tribal top boy, let's say the top warrior, I guess, because they already have a chief. They have a chief in their lead warrior. Or he's next in line, I guess.
Laura: He's definitely next in line.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: So I guess he, uh, sees behringer as a threat to the hierarchy that they have in place already.
Laura: Well, also, he's a stranger. He's a stranger coming in. They've had problems with strangers coming in. Trying to oppress them mean.
Ryan: Yeah, obviously. I guess so. Um, but the ladies like behringer. The ladies definitely like I mean, I guess everything that we're kind of distilling into a few seconds takes a, uh, lifetime, uh, to depict in the film.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: I just want to reiterate, this film is really long.
Ryan: It's incredibly overly long.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: Overly long.
Laura: Very bloated.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Unnecessarily big.
Ryan: I would expect that. Yes.
Laura: Um, it takes about an hour and a half for you to realize that the ladies love the behringer.
Ryan: Yes.
Ryan: But then we go back to the missionaries.
Laura: Yikes.
Ryan: If anything, a nice big side, uh, of exposed tribal culture and different peoples of the world. And then you slather on a big, nasty lump of Christianity. Uh, so we cut back to, uh, the Kathy Bates, Aiden Quinn, uh, uh, whatever they're doing.
Laura: Yeah. Well, and you get to see a little bit more, uh, John Lithgow. And, you know, at this point, you know, from the moment you met him, that he's a piece of shit. And you know, he's going to continue being terrible. He keeps talking about Pacifying people, calling anyone, uh, else, any of the native tribe, any of the native people that live there, calling them savages. You came here. It's so insensitive.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Well, it's basically his character, though.
Ryan: Well, it's white supremacy, but they're wearing, uh, plaid shirts and polo.
Laura: Yeah. Gods will be done.
Ryan: Yeah, gods will be done.
Ryan: Because this is when we get altered to the fucking well, if you didn't think behringer completely naked from head to toe was juicy, uh, you're going to be very surprised by what comes down the pike with the rest of this fucking movie.
Laura: Well, they put him in a cock sock, so they don't want him to be naked anymore, even though I'm sure it's in his contract that he has to be naked for 25% of the film. They put him in a cock sock, but that thing looks exactly like a penis from far away. So it's got a sack for his balls and it's got a tube for his shaft. So when you look at it again, you were saying everything's in mids and wides.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: I go, Is he naked again? Naked again?
Ryan: Well, the thing is, uh well, there's a uniformity to the tries people in that. They all look the same. They've all got armbands on. They've got these tiny wee sacks covering up their genitals. Um, but obviously none of the children are wearing them. So obviously all of that yeah, the kids are naked. The kids are naked. Uh, they're not wearing any clothes. Um, but yeah, I guess to show on my own kind of level of ignorance as well. You know what those things look like? They look like, uh, those sacks. I don't remember when they came out, but I remember them being around when I was in uni, like back in 2006 and seven. But those sacks that look like they've got, like, animal faces on them, like a dog or an elephant or something. No, they have like, little cock socks. And the nose is the deck. You put the shaft in the nose and it's got, like, animal faces on it. Yeah.
Laura: I didn't know what you meant. Yeah, I didn't know what you meant. I thought that they just kind of look like something you'd put your marbles in.
Ryan: Oh, uh, yeah, I mean, that's probably.
Laura: But yeah, you're right. I know what you're talking about now.
Ryan: Also during that time, you could get like, little smoothie bottles and they had, like, little woolly hats on the top. And you put that little woolly hat on your jimmy and it would be like he was all wrapped up for the winter.
Laura: Isn't that sweet?
Ryan: It looked weird when I looked at it. And then when you start drawing eyes and stuff on your deck, you're like, no, you know, you've crossed a line.
Laura: Wow.
Ryan: Yeah, I think yeah.
Ryan: We were talking about naked children and yeah, I guess this is us getting to this point.
Laura: Are we going to talk about Billy?
Ryan: I think we're going to talk about Billy.
Laura: Uh, which part? I have something specific I want to talk about when it comes to Billy. And it's ah, billy's kids falling down.
Ryan: Billy's story is yeah, well, I guess Billy is a series of tragedies and also, uh, some light hearted comedy. Um, but for 90% of the time that we see Billy, billy is naked as well. Um, it's rife.
Laura: Uh, it's very innocent, I guess. It's incredibly innocent. And I think it's actually really sweet and charming when Billy makes friends with the local kids and he takes a moment because he's grown up in South Dakota, wherever they came from, and he's not used to obviously being naked. And he's thrust against I don't want to say against his will, but he didn't have a choice in the situation.
Ryan: He didn't have a choice.
Laura: Parents into the jungle, um, on this mission trip. But he hasn't grown up this way. And so when he meets these children and they're trying to pull his trunks down, and he resists for a moment, but then he just kind of accepts it like kids do. Kids don't come with all this baggage that his parents come with. He's just out there, and he's making friends. He doesn't know what they're saying. They don't know what he's saying. But they're just kids. And it's really kind of cute that they're just making friends and they're painting him with mud, and they're just running around naked, and it doesn't mean anything.
Ryan: No, it doesn't.
Ryan: Yeah. Um.
Ryan: Uh, I guess the Billy story is the one part of the movie where we kind of make this really quite, um, deep distinction between what is learned and what is taught and what is indoctrinated. And then, obviously, that's coupled with, I guess, this childlike innocence, where they don't understand each other, but he does pick up everything that he's able to understand them very quickly. But in no way do you ever feel like, uh, he's judging anybody. No, he's just a little for their differences. Unlike, obviously, the parental, uh, counterparts.
Laura: Well, Kathy Bates, especially not m I wouldn't say so much. It was Aiden Quinn. I don't think he's the worst. No, but Kathy Bates is having a real hard time.
Ryan: Aiden Quinn is at least interested in their culture, and he's learning their language. Learning their language. He is understanding their culture, their beliefs, and what they do and who they are so that he can, I guess, better indoctrinate them into the Christian faith eventually. Um, but certainly, John Lithgow is kind of like a hard wall, staunch, kind of Christian pastor, and he will not take no for an answer.
Laura: And his way of doing it also is bribery, pretty much. And that's kind of what Aiden Quinn is brought into this kind of bribe situation where they give them presents. Give them presents, which are essentially dollar store gifts. Little plastic mirrors and beads, uh, and machetes.
Ryan: Machetes, yeah.
Laura: Which don't come from the dollar store.
Ryan: But no, I mean, that'd be awesome. You get your dollar 25 machete.
Laura: But that's what he is used to doing in order to bring the people in, is by bribery and giving gifts and giving presents to keep them coming back so that he can give them the, uh, word of God. So that's, uh, what Aidan Quinn is doing as well. But I think that he kind of quickly realizes that that's not it's not the method. It doesn't doesn't that's not how you should do things. So it's very strange. But I do think it's very cute that Billy's just kind of just living his little kid life and just doing his thing.
Ryan: Um, and he fits right in.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Because none of these kids are seeing the differences, uh, that are obviously, uh, very apparent from looking at each other. They don't see those differences. No. And obviously the language barrel, like I was talking about before, but Billy has a horrible time.
Laura: Well, there's this one moment before the horrible things happen to where Aiden Quinn is meeting, um, I keep forgetting the name. The Nyruna tribe.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: And they come in and he's really.
Ryan: I said that walking on some level of belief, like I was, you know, that's exactly what the tribe's name is because I didn't.
Laura: He has, he has the gifts and he has Billy bring them in. He gets Billy bring the gifts. And Billy runs in in those little red trunks and just trips and just all this little dollar store gifts go flying. And all of the people in the tribe just start laughing. And it was just this very kind of humbling little moment where everybody loves a kid falling down.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: Little fat kid fell over universal truth. Little fat boy fell over the world.
Laura: Everyone loves kids getting hurt.
Ryan: Yeah, pretty much. Also, um, we glossed over that other part where him and the rest of the kids from the tribe watch, uh, that older couple begin, uh, their sinful fornication in, uh, the, uh, hammock.
Laura: Yeah. Kathy Bates doesn't like that.
Ryan: She doesn't.
Ryan: Because sex isn't for pleasure.
Laura: You guys aren't even married. Yeah, she slaps Billy.
Ryan: She gives him a wee spanking. Yeah. And he's also not wearing any shorts at this point either. He's just holding his, um, um last.
Laura: Time Billy has any fun.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: But this is also kind of the dichotomy between, obviously the couple as know, between Bates and Quinn. And Quinn is willing to understand them, as opposed to Kathy Bates, uh, is more kind of, uh, conversion.
Laura: She wants them to change their she.
Ryan: Wants them to change completely change their.
Laura: Culture and change their yes.
Ryan: Wear dresses and uh, start acting like a decent human being. Cover yourself up, ladies. That sort of bullshit.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: So is this where we talk about Billy's untimely demise?
Ryan: Well, that's the thing. Well, the tribe that obviously, uh, inherit, uh, behringer they come for a little visit and they're the ones that they get the presents for. And then they mistakenly stab Quinn, uh, in the chest just a tiny bit, which is a little bit fucked up. I didn't expect that to happen.
Laura: But that was pretty pointy thing.
Ryan: Obviously not playing into the stereotype or anything, but they literally have like spears and, uh, handmade axes and bows and arrows and stuff like that. They are aware of, uh, the sharp pointy thing breaks skin. Um, but yeah, this is where Billy comes to a very sudden and tragic, uh, demise.
Laura: Billy gets what they call blackwater fever, which I had to look up, which is a complication of malaria, where essentially your kidneys fail and it happens within 24 hours. So Quinn, Aidan Quinn basically refuses to try to help his son whatsoever. But I feel like you would at least try, because he feels like by the time that they got to hospital, by the time they were able to get out of where they're staying, that it would be too late anyway. So there's no point in even trying.
Ryan: He said it was a 24 hours disease, so it would run its course within 24 hours. So with the bad weather and things, because obviously it's the Amazon rainforest, it rains, uh, all the time, um uh, he would be dead before he was able to get help.
Laura: Granted, he would at least give it a shot.
Ryan: Well, here's the thing. I guess my understanding of Aiden was that I have decided the path of this family. He will get to sleep in a bed. This is his home. He will get to die in his own um, I mean, this was one of the nicest things that I enjoyed about the film was that Aidan Quinn's obviously going in with know, with obviously like, this is the mission, this is what we do, we have to be steadfast in the cause. And they seem perfectly okay with not giving Billy the help. But the thing is, all the people within the tribe are obviously part of the mission. Or at least they're kind of being indoctrinated into the mission. Um, even without looking like even without having to communicate with them and figure it out, they already know what's wrong with them and they already know that little Billy is dying and he will die.
Laura: Yes.
Ryan: And this is where there's a clashing of you've got your Christian belief and your morals guess, uh, that whole process of how do we deal with the dead and the passing and where does the soul go? All this sort of stuff. Where there's obviously then this juxtaposed idea of the tribal people, the natives idea of spirituality and where does the body go? And then what is the process to which we deal with the passing of this individual. And obviously it's at the behest of this very young boy, which is obviously what gives us a little bit more weight. Um, and I don't know. Do you remember what Billy said just before he died?
Laura: I do remember. His very last words were, why did God have to go and make mosquitoes?
Ryan: Yes.
Ryan: You know what that reminds me of? And when he said it, it reminded me of that Stephen Fry speech, um, where he talked about uh, why he doesn't believe in God. And it was purely on the basis and I'm kind of paraphrasing here was purely on the basis that there are creatures out there that have supposedly, obviously God created everything. There are creatures out there where their sole purpose in life is to bore into the eyes of children and then blind them. And he's like, if that is what God would create and would willingly allow to happen to children, then I do not want to believe in that God.
Laura: Oh, my goodness.
Ryan: And I wholeheartedly I'm behind that 100%. Um, yeah, we don't really go on about our belief, but I like to believe in things that I can see. And that's just kind of where my that's where the buck kind of stops and ends with me.
Laura: I just say, let people do what they want.
Ryan: I don't care, as long as it doesn't affect you or start to, ah, start to, uh, affect your life, I think that's perfectly fine.
Laura: I don't want to be oppressed.
Ryan: I think for as much as religion teaches us certain values and can be very fulfilling to people who decide to keep hold of a faith, I feel like there is far worse that has come from religion than good here.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: Um, but poor fucking Billy.
Laura: Yeah, he goes out hard. And there is a notion at least, and I don't know, because I do believe that these are different tribes because it's not the Naruna.
Ryan: They're not all the same tribes. We are introduced later to other tribes as well.
Laura: But the people that are kind of hanging out with the missionaries that have befriended Billy and, uh, befriended the missionary people, they believe that Billy died because he had an enemy. And an enemy put this disease on him. And so the only way that he can go forward in the afterlife is to murder the enemy.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: And I do believe, if I'm not mistaken, that they understood that the missionaries were the enemy.
Ryan: Yes, that seemed abundantly clear. And I will put this out there. The version of the movie that we saw didn't have any subtitles whatsoever.
Laura: I'm so worried that there were subtitles to this.
Ryan: I worry that there was subtitles, but the problem is that I don't feel like the subtitles would have changed our perspective of what the scenes were portraying. I felt like you got a very clear idea from how the scenes were played out that, uh, really that language barrier just didn't really exist. And I feel like if that was a conscious decision from the filmmakers, I would say, well, bravo, because I think you've done a really good job with, uh, us being able to understand it without understanding the language. But the issue I would see is that within that scene, obviously their spiritual belief, they wanted an enemy. It seemed plainly obvious to me it was directed towards John Lithgow and Aiden Quinn.
Ryan: But the issue I had as well was that John Lithgow's character decides to use Billy as a martyr.
Laura: Oh, yes. It's so bad because they're having a funeral for Billy and John Lithgow is having the service and everyone's quite sad. But then the Nyruna tribe shows up and while he's giving his service, and he realizes that he has a bigger audience, and it's the audience that he's wanting to convert. He just goes large and just starts preaching and singing and causing a fucking scene in front of these parents who have just lost their kid. And it's disgusting. And it's just quite sad because he ends up calling these people savages, and he does it throughout the whole film. But they're literally there to help, and they're literally there, uh, to be a part of their sorrow and to try to help the situation.
Ryan: It's the dichotomy of just, I feel like, missions in general, I just don't understand this idea of you're like, we're going to help, but the the primary aim of what you're doing is to indoctrinate people to your faith. For the reason of what though I still find that incredibly ignorant and arrogant and also disrespectful, I don't understand the fundamental reasonings behind even wanting to undertake such an endeavor. Like, it doesn't really make any sense to me.
Laura: Well, no, I still think that the underlying purpose is a genuine want to. Well, it's not for every, uh I don't even know how to explain it. I do think that people that are going on the mission, uh, genuinely want to help other people because they think that that's the way. Right. So they think that anyone who doesn't believe in their God is destined to eternal hellfire. Right. And so you want everyone to have a happy afterlife. So if you believe that so hard and you want to go out on a mission to try to, quote, unquote, save people, then you're doing it out of a goodness. Now, I don't believe that the characters, or at least John Lithgow in this film, are doing it for the good. He's not a good person. And I do believe that Aiden Quinn initially went out there to be a source of ignorance.
Ryan: Um, the thing is, he goes there.
Ryan: They go there with, I guess, a good thing. No, there's a bare faced ignorance to just I feel like just that level of thinking just in general. But to me, I feel like it should always come from a way of trying to educate yourself as opposed to trying to convert. I feel like that's kind of where it's becoming more worldly. It's just about becoming more educated and more informed about. I have this belief system. I'm very interested in why these people have come to this point in their lives and the history that's kind of surrounding, uh, mean, this is the turning point in the movie when Billy dies. And obviously, this is where it all starts to kind of crumble and fall down.
Laura: Yeah, I was going to say, speaking of burning it all down, it's about to literally happen in this is this there's a moment that happens where I didn't get to mention before that Tom Behrenger got a really sick bowl cut and went from having his. Luxurious long wig to having a bowl cut because he is part of this Nairuna, uh, tribe.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: That is the distinct look, the uniformity of the tribe.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: Well, it's like, he's and I mean, I talk about, like yeah, he's fully in, like, the homogenization of him.
Laura: Like, his whole he's got the feathers. He's fully in brand new family.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: His character arc is just I mean, I think it's just genuinely interesting whether you agree, obviously, with the rest of the stuff we've already pointed out. I do think his character arc is interesting because it felt as if when his character and we open the movie, he is desperately seeking an identity. Because the identity that he feels he is saddled with, um, genetically completely clashes against what he believes.
Laura: Okay.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: And this is the time where he's like, I'm now fully accepted into this society. They will not judge me based on the color of my skin or my ethnicity or, uh, my racial origin. They'll just take me in because well.
Laura: He came in with open arms.
Ryan: A, uh, mutual level of understanding.
Laura: Yeah. He came in unencumbered and wanting to learn and wanting to genuinely be a part of their group.
Ryan: Because the only thing that again, because we keep on bringing it up, but the only thing that would kind of take away that one offensive element from his character is if it wasn't played by Tom Behringer, it was actually played by someone who was would be that would be it. We would have zero issue with what was going on.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: It would be fine. So many other people there's probably hundreds, thousands of people that, uh, they could have actually called on to play that role instead.
Laura: Anyway, so there is a weird thing going on that is never quite explored between Tom Behringer and Daryl Hanna, where there's an attraction, there mutual, uh, attraction that they don't explore. And I also believe that they don't explore the fact that Daryl Hannah has the flu.
Ryan: No.
Laura: That comes into play later, which, in a three plus hour long film, the fact that the one thing that actually tears down an entire group of people isn't explained how this woman has the flu. Anyway, uh, Tom Behringer shows up when Daryl Hannah is taken a swim and she's naked, and yeah, she's naked. They end up without saying any words, I don't believe.
Ryan: No.
Laura: Have a tender kissy moment.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: It's kind of like a silent loveliness that they share. Um, which is never really I mean, it just kind of happened.
Laura: It's not explained. It's not explored in any way whatsoever.
Ryan: No.
Laura: But this, um, is a moment where you find out later where Tom Behringer gets the flu from her.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: And that has consequences has consequences to a lot of people.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: Well, the flu starts to decimate the tribe. I mean, we're glossing over the fact that Tom Beringer's character rapes his partner.
Laura: He sure does.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: And impregnates her. Um, I mean, I think they have a kid already.
Laura: They must have had a kid already.
Ryan: But he basically doesn't take no for an answer.
Laura: He 100% rapes his wife.
Ryan: He just 100% rapes his partner, his tribe partner.
Laura: Um, and due to this due to this kiss that happened between Darryl Hannah and him, uh, where he rapes his wife girlfriend partner partner, and then this gives her the flu, and then it transfers it to the whole tribe. But there is this one moment when Daryl Hanna and Tom Berenger have a kiss where she kind of grabs his shoulder. You can actually see the brown makeup that they've put on this man come off onto her hand.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Just want to point that out. Um, so the whole Nyrana, uh, tribe is having a really difficult time, and also so is Kathy Bates. When you go back to the missionary.
Ryan: Camp, kathy Bates is obviously traumatized by the death of her son.
Laura: She never cries. She never has a moment where she.
Ryan: Actually kind of does thing fucking the horrible thing about it is, obviously, John Lithgow's got his fucking hooks in her, and the religion and the Christianity has got her fucking hooks in her. And her mind just starts to fracture. Snap. And eventually, when she does leave, she's gone mad. Like, she's gone mental.
Laura: Um, yeah, her whole breakdown scene is wild because she just comes out of nowhere, uh, covered in mud, totally naked, just kind of draped in shrubbery.
Ryan: I would say she's covered in the foliage of the jungle. Yeah.
Laura: Shrubs. She's covered in mud and shrubs. And she is screaming and just howling and screaming nonsense.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: That's the same moment where Behringer, he brings the tribe with him to the mission to basically beg for, uh, medical supplies. Um, because none of the tribe have any protection or obviously flu jabs from previous times have any protection from the flu whatsoever. So they're all dropping like.
Laura: Boy, oh, boy. There was a moment worth, I guess you find out that the time is running short for the Nyruna, because.
Ryan: The.
Laura: Military man from the beginning of the film says that they have until a certain amount of time and they're going to go bomb their tribe.
Ryan: Pretty much. Yeah, pretty much.
Laura: So in a last ditch effort to try to save these people, aiden Quinn and Tom Behringer go back to their home, to their tribe.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: Well, you're glossing over the fact that Aidan Quinn, uh, he forcibly takes, um, what would you call him? The escorts.org, the guide.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: He basically forces him to take him to the tribe's, um, uh, home, effectively, their encampment, um, so that he can basically explain to them, you need to leave because they're going to fire bomb you out of here.
Laura: It doesn't make any sense because Tom Behringer speaks English and speaks the language of the mean.
Ryan: Tom Behringer wasn't there at uh, that like Aiden Quinn needed someone to guide him there, but he treats this poor guide like he's a fucking piece of shit. And I have no understanding for why.
Laura: He I don't know why he does that either.
Ryan: No, it's very weird.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: I mean, I guess to justify the fact that that's the guy who ends up fucking braining him at the end of the movie. But to be fair, um, they have very little interest in leaving. And there's this fantastic moment where basically, in order for Aiden Quinn to be I mean, what would you say he's trying to do? I guess to be listened to, or they will converse with him, or they'll have some level of understanding as to why he wants them to go, or he's going to talk to them or whatever right. Is that he has to pray to Tom Behringer because they feel like he was a godly figure. A Jesus, as it were.
Laura: Um, he was their god. He was the moon. He came from the sky.
Ryan: Calls himself the moon.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: Keisu, uh, is what they refer to him, uh, in the movie. But basically that's their version of Jesus Christ. And obviously, Aidan Quinn, the hardened staunch Christian that he is, he will not pray to another god. Certainly not TB.
Laura: Yeah. Not TB.
Ryan: Not TB.
Laura: I mean, he'd been struggling with his faith, I think, ever since they arrived there. Really? Pretty much, yeah.
Ryan: As in I think he was understanding the harm that they were doing, um, as opposed to the benefit of what they were doing.
Laura: Absolutely.
Ryan: But the thing is, and again, this was, again, the distillation of how Behringer's character is effectively dismantling their belief system, or at least kind of the understanding of that, is that Tom Behringer's character is effectively a nihilist. He doesn't believe in fucking anything. He does not care. And he's found his quiet little center of the world, and he's quite happy to stay there and pretend to be whatever they want him to be. But he basically just turns to Aiden Quinn. He goes, it's all hocus pocus, though, isn't it, Martin?
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: You know what I mean? And I'm just like he's like, yeah, I'm burning all down, Martin. Like, I'm going to burn it all down. And then, quite literally, it does get burned down. But yeah, he's ready to just burn it all down.
Laura: Yeah. I mean, it ends up with Aiden Quinn.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Anthony Quinn, uh, in his classic character arc, decides that everyone would have been better off just staying home. Nobody would have gotten sick and yeah. And everyone would have been happier.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: Uh, I guess the level of blame that they decide to mount on certain members of the mission as well, uh, I mean, what you find out, effectively, is like, John Lithgow's character is a fucking coward anyway. He's allowed people to go to this encampment to this mission to effectively, um it's an unsuccessful mission. This is not going to play out well. It seems like many people have tried and many people have died in the process of trying to enact his vision.
Laura: And this time everyone suffers.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: And effectively.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: I mean, it's a complete and utter failure. Really. Complete and utter failure. And, uh, it's exemplified all the more as, um, there's a Catholic priest who's part of, uh, the original town that they all land in and stuff like that. And they have absolutely zero respect for him whatsoever. But he just kind of matter of fact playing his day. He's just like, it was never going to be successful. It was never going to happen. Why you seem to think it was going to happen? I do not know. Hubris, pretty much. Yeah, pretty much. He knew it just wasn't going to work out. And he himself was yeah, I think he was either Brazilian or Portuguese. Uh, either way. Um, but yeah, as someone who has lived among those people, he knew far more, uh, than these, uh, alien visitors were going to ever know. Of course, a relative dampener, this movie.
Laura: Yeah. I mean, just if we didn't explain it enough, big spoiler. Everyone pretty much dies.
Ryan: Pretty much, yeah. Pretty much.
Laura: The place gets bombed and womp. Womp.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: But it ends how it should. The Nairuna did nothing wrong. And they were just trying to live their lives.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: They were always fucking ruin everything.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: But again, it's like, yes, the white people meddling where they shouldn't be meddling. Um, which is, uh, exactly what it is.
Ryan: But yeah.
Ryan: No, I mean, all of these people, unfortunately, they get exactly what they deserve.
Laura: Lesson learned.
Ryan: Lesson learned. Leave people alone. Not everybody has to believe you and believe in your fucking.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: I found out that it was shot completely on location over five months.
Ryan: Completely.
Ryan: All on the Amazonia.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: Um, that sounds horrific.
Laura: But I read an interview with Kathy Bates that said they all had a really good time and they all became great friends.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: I guess it's not like an Apocalypse Now sort of situation. Whereas they literally made like a cultish tribe, like in Cambodia. And Marlon Brando was their know.
Laura: I don't remember.
Ryan: Well, there's a documentary out there called Heart of Darkness, which is the making of Apocalypse Now.
Laura: And it basically is like, oh, you said Apocalypto. Was Marlon Brando in Apocalypto?
Ryan: No, I said Apocalypse Now.
Laura: And this movie was released in December, which I think is an interesting choice.
Ryan: It sounds like they expected this film to fail. If they release it in December.
Laura: I feel like they're expecting it to win lots of awards.
Ryan: I guess like January is the killer the killer month for films when they get released. You have no faith in that film whatsoever. You decide to release it in, uh, January. So maybe December. Well, maybe because of all the Christianity, it was a good christmas movie, maybe.
Ryan: I guess the only other thing I kind of wanted to bring up from the movie is that Kathy Bates, when she starts losing her mind, she calls Daryl Hannah Baron, which I found kind of alarming since their whole belief structure is based on a story about a woman who got pregnant without ever having.
Laura: Of blaming it on the woman. They always have to blame it on the women. Who knows? Maybe John Lisco was shooting blanks.
Ryan: He might have been. He might have, uh, mean, either way.
Laura: Um, comes out of nowhere.
Ryan: It does come out of nowhere, but.
Laura: Then it muddle over her arm.
Ryan: Well, the thing is, m Kathy Bates at that point is just kind of like, what's it all she turns that's, uh I don't know.
Laura: Fucking I thought you were going to bring up the thing about James Cameron.
Ryan: Um, well, I didn't write it down. You told me about it before, so you should probably say it now. Yeah, I never wrote it down because.
Laura: I thought I wrote it down. Well, James Cameron said that this film was a thematic influence for Avatar.
Ryan: I mean, that makes yeah, because almost the exact same story kind of happens.
Laura: In people come in and ruin everything.
Ryan: People come in and ruin everything. But then one is accepted and decides he is then going to decide to be there. I mean, my only concern is, is Tom Barrider still in the Amazon rainforest?
Ryan: Right.
Laura: Uh, now, has anyone checked on him?
Ryan: Did he just stay there? There is far too much nakedness for all the amount of insects and reptiles that are running around that, uh, rainforest.
Laura: There have got to be crocodiles, there are snakes, there are pythons, there's bugs.
Ryan: Anacondas.
Laura: Indeed.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: Spiders, even just the insects alone, I would be like the fucking ants. Motherfucking ants. So many ants as big as your hands.
Laura: How are they getting away with wearing that little of clothing?
Ryan: Or fucking walking around barefoot? What the fuck is going on there?
Laura: I have to walk around in the woods for work. And I have to wear and it's Florida. It's hot. I have to wear thick trousers. I have to wear long sleeve shirts. I have to wear head coverage. And I still get bit by ants and spiders and ticks. Yeah. Yikes. So this film didn't win any awards. No big ones. But it did get nominated for a Golden Globe for best original score.
Ryan: Um, okay. Uh, score's. All right. Score's.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: Yeah. The same person that did this score, I am not going to butcher his name, but he also did all the scores to The Three Colors.
Ryan: Oh.
Ryan: Uh, the Christoph Koslowski movies. Okay, cool.
Laura: But they lost this year to Alan Menken for Beauty and the Beast. They won original score.
Ryan: Oh, for the animated movie?
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: I mean, yeah. That's hard to top. That one. That one's pretty know.
Laura: So that's that yeah.
Laura: Uh, so um, let's jump into ratings. I went first last time, so you go ahead and go, uh, for your rating for visibility and context.
Ryan: Oh, five stars. Yeah, five stars. You see everything. And I love the context of everything that's going on here, because the thing is, we watched this scene completely out of context from the rest of the movie, and then we were obviously kind of looking at it, like tip by Tidbits and stuff like that. And I guess the concept and the ideas behind the character and some of the things this film were doing was what attracted us to do this episode in the first place, because we're like, that's pretty fucked up.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: But, uh, when you look at it all within the context of the story and what they're trying to do, I think this scene is one of the best ones. This is almost as good as that scene in Bad Lieutenant, which is easily my favorite part of that movie. But, yeah, I would say that's as strong this is. So, I mean, I would give it five, but I would probably because of the nature of what Behringer is doing and some of the appropriation that's obviously being I might drop it just purely out of principle, um, but for the nature of what it's doing here, I'm just going to say, uh, five stars. But I do not agree with the kind of more racist aspects of this part.
Laura: Well, it's quite obvious that we don't agree with the appropriation here, and the fact that Tom Behringer is cast in this film made that pretty clear.
Ryan: I don't think there is if we can say it at every moment, I feel like that is very useful for us.
Laura: But I will go ahead and also give it five, because it is intentional. And I think that without that scene for the character, would have meant death. So if he, as that character, would have walked in to meet that group of people with all of his clothes on, they would have murdered him. I think it would have been pretty clear. So he went in the only way that he knew how to get in there and be accepted. That's the only way he could have done it.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: And he did it with open arms.
Ryan: So we have the ratings for the film. Do you want to go first?
Laura: Sure.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Three stars.
Ryan: All right.
Laura: I gave it three. I thought about three and a half, but it is so damn long. It's way too long. I can't watch this movie ever again. It's interesting. I do like a story. I love a story about someone m kind of losing their faith and realizing that they've done a horrible thing. I like tom, waites. I think Kathy Bates is awesome. I love a ah, John Lithgow when he starts yelling. It has a lot of things that I enjoy. Um, anthropologically, it's very interesting, the fact that this man can go into this group of people and be accepted and learn their language and integrate himself into a culture is very, very fascinating anthropologically, very interesting. It is a shame, once again, that we will say that Tom Beringer played that role. But that is what it is. It's in the film now.
Ryan: It's the main issue I have with the film depicting so much stark realism shooting in location. Um, it's the only thing that just doesn't ring true, is just, uh, Tom Perringer playing a Native American.
Laura: And you have people, uh, of that ancestry playing the native people in this tribe. Yeah, big time in these tribes.
Ryan: There's an authenticity that I feel like you don't really see in a lot of other films. No, I feel like you blew it.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: I feel like you kind of ruined.
Ryan: It a little bit.
Ryan: And it's kind of like you have relatively quite stacked cast as well.
Laura: Yeah, there's no need.
Ryan: And Hector's worked with I mean, this is effectively the film that springboards them into, um, I guess, working with a whole bunch of other, uh, like William Hurt.
Laura: Uh love it.
Ryan: Yeah. He works with him on Kiss, uh, of the Spider Woman, and obviously Willem Dafoe, and a whole, uh, host of big stars and stuff of their current time.
Ryan: So?
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: I don't know. I mean, maybe there's a kind of star vehicle, and it's like, well, we can't put someone who's actually Native American in that role because it won't fill the seats. But unfortunately, it felt like the film didn't fill any fucking seats either.
Laura: Was Tom Behringer, I'm very curious, a, uh uh, huge pull for audiences in.
Ryan: Mean, after he was in Platoon. He's also in Someone To Watch Over Me. And also he's in that movie, that Wolfgang Peterson movie we watched recently, which I think is excellent, is, uh, shattered.
Laura: Yeah, shattered is insane.
Ryan: But he's a prominent face and stuff. I just don't know. I know he's not right for the role, and I think he definitely tries his best. It's just really hard every time you see him where you're just like they've colored him in, and it's just don't.
Laura: See him as a blockbuster boy. I don't see Behringer as a blockbuster boy.
Ryan: No, I guess not. But the thing is, uh, you know what, I wouldn't mind if someone's done a little bit more extensive research onto the making of this film, if they can let us know why certain choices were made.
Ryan: Because if they were so desperate to.
Ryan: Make this movie from the minute the book was published, and then the film's not made until like, 91 was really Tom Behringer the best choice for that role? And would they not have taken a little bit more due care and consideration to make sure that I mean, there's other issues I have with the film. I think Tom Waits is underused, and I'm like, again, I kind of questioned.
Ryan: Some of his motivations.
Ryan: And obviously, John Lithgow is playing John Lithgow. Um, but certainly, yeah, I have questions.
Ryan: Um, but I guess I can go into my rating.
Laura: Please do.
Ryan: Yeah, I gave the film a higher rating than you did because I enjoyed the story a bit more than you did. I didn't, at any point, feel particularly bored or tired by the running time. Um, I do feel like it is.
Ryan: A little bit bloated, though.
Ryan: There are kind of moments that kind of go a little bit over long. But for the most part, the fucking story is tragic. And, I mean, I guess if you want a similar story to this, I'd.
Ryan: Be like, look, you're probably better off.
Ryan: And it's a better film in general. You're better off watching Martin Scorsese's, uh, silence. Because I think that film is perfection. Um, and it's, again, very similar, very tragic, kind of missionary story. Except obviously, they go to Japan, which I think is just a vastly more interesting, uh, concept in general.
Ryan: But anyway, talking about at play in.
Ryan: The fields of the Lord, um, I gave it four stars. And I think there's some bullshit in this film. There's some evident bullshit, like big time bullshit. And I feel like we've covered it quite a fair amount.
Ryan: Probably too.
Ryan: Yeah, probably too. Exhaustion.
Laura: Well, boy, oh, boy. Uh, what a thick topic, uh, for the day after Thanksgiving. And I hope everyone feels incredibly bloated and full of wine.
Ryan: Like this film. Incredibly bloated.
Laura: Incredibly. Yeah. I hope you feel as bloated as this film and are enjoying your time and not oppressing anybody else, uh, based on how they live their lives.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: Stop stamping on people that have different views than your own.
Laura: Just enjoy life. And do you, baby.
Ryan: Leave them alone.
Laura: Just be sexy. Enjoy yourself.
Ryan: Yeah, unless they're doing something nefarious. Then call the police.
Laura: Yeah, call the cops.
Ryan: Call the cops. Maybe the cops will help you.
Laura: Well, happy I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Um, we're going to roll into December and find you some really cheeky and fun.
Ryan: Yeah.
Ryan: Some juicy, juicy Christmas dick flick, chris Kringle, um, stuff.
Laura: So be nice to one another. And make sure if you're not already following us on the social medias, please do so. Because then we will drop the stuff that we're doing next and you can be informed and in the know.
Ryan: We'll allow you to know what we're up to.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: And thanks, guys. Uh, coming to you from home because we're not going on any missions. All right, just leave.
Ryan: Our friends just decided they were going to go to South America as well.
Laura: They're not doing anything except eating French fries. And good for them.
Ryan: Okay, good.
Laura: This looks delicious.
Ryan: I hope it's fine.
Ryan: Just be safe out there, guys.
Laura: Be safe.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Happy Thanksgiving. And, uh, we will see you next time.
Ryan: You will.
Ryan: Unless you don't.
Laura: Bye.