At a time when most of America was idealizing the rain forrests and its inhabitants in films (i.e. "The Emerald Forrest"), this movie gave a harsh, gritty and unapologetic view of "the situation on the ground" living among the indigenous people of the Amazon. It contrasts the lives and motivations of a group of N. American fundamentalist missionaries sent to the Amazon to convert the locals, with the concept of the world and humanity from the point of view of the indigenous inhabitants forced to encounter these "new" people; both of whom are ultimately used and/or discarded by the ever-encroaching settlers and prospectors with the tacit blessing of the government. At times a bit cliché (the "love scene" between Darryl Hannah and Berringer as a prime example) and at others very inappropriate (there were scenes with minors that could have been dealt with using far more subtlety and in much better taste) the film does a good job overall in showing there simply is no room for wistful romanticism about the current situation in the Amazon basin.

God made missionaries so that they could be 'at play in the fields of the lord', harvesting souls so that they (the missionaries) get confirmed entry into heaven on judgment day. No kidding here – check with any religious authority. The only problem is that just how many souls need to be saved or harvested per missionary? That apart, another problem was that what to do with the savages once they had been saved by having accepted the Lord Jesus as the savior? Here there were two choices – either they could 'serve' the missionaries and their political masters for the rest of their lives, but in case they were not suitable for that purpose, or the land they were living on was required, then the best solution was to kill them, because the perfect logic was that once their souls had been saved, they had no need for their bodies any longer. The important point to note is that they must be saved first and then only must they be killed, otherwise who knows where their souls might escape to, never to be harvested? Again I am not kidding, check the History of the 'conquest of paradise'. The Amazon forests are the last of the 'fields to be harvested', because they are difficult to access. Although systematic cutting of the forests is now well under progress, the speed at which it has been done earlier without machines was quite slow. The basic storyline is that the government hires half Native American pilot Lewis Moon to bomb the wooden settlement of the nearby Niruna tribe so that they run away and the land can be used by the government, as also gold has been found there. There are two missionary couples who want to 'save' the tribal people before they are made to run away by the government. When Moon takes his plane over the settlement, a highly charged and unafraid tribal leader shoots a futile arrow towards him. Shaken by this experience, and with the help of the local drug something snaps inside him and he refuses to drop the bombs over the settlement, dumps his job and goes to live with the Niruna who accept him as some kind of person who has 'power'. Meanwhile the missionaries reach there and try to befriend the Indians by giving them gifts. Moon tries to warn the Indians that they should have nothing to do with the missionaries, and that any kind of contact is going to be fatal for them.But fated it is already, as disease first consumes the son (Billy) of the sincere missionary Martin. Billy has become close friends with the natives, and when he dies, they are also heartbroken and try to figure out who killed him, rather than accept the civilized man's 'fact' that malaria was the cause. Through their religious visions they conclude that Billy was killed by the other missionary Leslie, who flees.Subsequently, disease hits the Indians as they are infected by flu carried by Moon, and they have no immunity against it. The religious leader of the Indians begins to suspect that Moon is a fraud, and Moon feels he is trapped between two extreme world views which cannot be reconciled because there is no common ground between them. One world view is that of civilization grounded in material science as well as organized religion of monotheism, the other world view is of raw nature in harmony and hidden entities as causes or controls, and Moon is in the No Man's Land between the two. The settlement is bombed and destroyed, the Indians flee into the forest, and Moon is confronted by the native religious leader who calls Moon a 'white man' before he dies.Moon is left 'all alone in the world with nothing but folly' (Carlos), the movie ends with him determined to live his life in the forest, all alone if need be. In a very strange way Moon reminds me of a real life character caught in the No Man's Land between organized religion and primordial personal religious experience that makes that individual all alone in the world confronting the monumental follies of man. Kierkegaard roamed the streets of Copenhagen all alone 'at play in the fields of the lord' and his harvest was that of volumes of creative writing that probed the true meaning of religion.

Savagery accelerates. It took European immigrants several centuries to "pacify" - convert, slaughter and segregate - the native populations of North America, but Brazilians have accomplished the same feat in less than 50 years. It is estimated that by the end of the century not a single native in the state of Amazonia will be living under traditional conditions. The issue is almost academic: Thanks to European-introduced diseases, forced relocations and outright genocide, relatively few natives will be around to live under any conditions.That's the subject of At Play in the Fields of the Lord, adapted from Peter Matthiessen's prescient 1965 novel, and it's an extraordinary one, but Brazilian director Hector Babenco's three-hour, $36-million morality play trivializes it with caricatured performances and crowd-pleasing comedy. Babenco, best known for Pixote and The Kiss of the Spider Woman, has said that Matthiessen's novel was "critical and intense" when dealing with two white missionary couples, the Hubens and the Quarriers, but that the Indians, a fictitious composite tribe called the Niaruna, were "cartoonish." Hence, Babenco has evened the score: in his film, the natives are presented with intensity and the missionaries are cartoons.Although put into production before Dances With Wolves and Black Robe were released, At Play combines their story lines. The Dances With Wolves scenario is played out by the half-Cheyenne mercenary Lewis Moon (Tom Berenger); hired to bomb the Niaruna, he instead parachutes into their compound and becomes one of their near-naked, idyllically happy number.Meanwhile, the missionary couples enact a Protestant version of Black Robe. Leslie Huben (John Lithgow) is a ridiculously rigid martinet who dismisses the Catholic Church as "the opposition" and even tries to wrest a statue of the Virgin Mary from the arms of a native convert. His wife Andy (Darryl Hannah) has no personality - she appears to be present to give voyeurs in the audience something nice to look at. But toward the end of the epic, she goes skinny-dipping and then - still starkers as the day she was born - sticks her tongue into the mouth of the now thoroughly native Lewis Moon, who has conveniently popped up to ogle her long-limbed nudity. (In the concupiescent camp sweepstakes, the scene rivals The Blue Lagoon.) The embrace has dire consequences. It gives Moon a minor case of the flu, which he in turn passes along to the Niaruna, who have no immunity to the disease. Talk about kiss of the Spider Woman.The other couple, Martin (Aidan Quinn) and Hazel Quarrier (Kathy Bates) , have other problems. She is a puritanical hysteric - "Everything here is dirty," she screeches of a town on the border of the wilderness, as if a would-be missionary would expect anything else - who is anxious that her child, Billy (Niilo Kivirinta), retain his Midwestern mores. Her husband, however, is a somewhat sensitive true believer (like the priest in Black Robe) who is anxious to help the natives without harming them. This is the single complex character in the film, so it's no surprise that Quinn gives the single multidimensional performance.Babenco's attitudes toward Hazel Quarrier, as a character, and toward Kathy Bates, as an actress, are inexcusable - Bates' weight and Hazel's hysteria are callously used for comic relief, even after Hazel undergoes a nervous breakdown brought on by grief. Compared to what Babenco does with her, director Rob Reiner treated Bates as a sacred object in Misery.At Play in the Fields of the Lord is not without rewards. The aerial Amazon vistas, shrouded in mist, are startlingly beautiful; the daily life of the Niaruna is depicted with a glossy, picturesque clarity that brings to mind National Geographic; and the sequences in which the boy Billy goes native are sweetly humorous. But the tribe remains an enigma - we understand far more about the 17th-century native cultures in Black Robe than we do about these contemporary people. With the exception of the inappropriately Christological conclusion (I am being deliberately vague), we are never encouraged to understand the missionaries, only to laugh at, detest and feel superior to them. Surely it's not that simple. Endeavouring to bring salvation, they brought only suffering; there should be a tragic human drama there. Endeavouring to bring insight, At Play in the Fields of the Lord brings only obfuscation; there should have been a great movie there. Benjamin Miller, Filmbay Editor.

Does anyone know where I can buy this movie? I believe it is still only available in VHS.Please feel free to contact me if you know where I can purchase this movie, or if you have one for sale yourself. Does anyone know where I can buy this movie? I believe it is still only available in VHS.Please feel free to contact me if you know where I can purchase this movie, or if you have one for sale yourself. Does anyone know where I can buy this movie? I believe it is still only available in VHS.Please feel free to contact me if you know where I can purchase this movie, or if you have one for sale yourself. Does anyone know where I can buy this movie? I believe it is still only available in VHS.Please feel free to contact me if you know where I can purchase this movie, or if you have one for sale yourself.