The Weight Cut Loose

In the 1986 film The Mission, Robert De Niro plays Rodrigo Mendoza, a mercenary and slave trader in 18th-century South America. After killing his own brother in a jealous rage, Rodrigo is consumed by guilt so crushing he can barely function. Father Gabriel, a Jesuit priest, offers him a path through penance: climb the treacherous waterfalls above a Guaraní village — the very people Rodrigo had kidnapped and sold into slavery — while dragging a heavy net stuffed with his weapons and armor as a symbol of his sin.…