The forces of civilization that descend upon the Niaruna tribe come in three forms, all of them ultimately tragic. The government, which covets their gold-rich land, wants them driven off, by whatever means necessary. The American fundamentalist missionaries, bearing baubles as bribes, want their souls for Jesus. And the half-breed Cheyenne, Lewis Moon (Tom Berenger), a mercenary who has been blackmailed by the local commandante into bombing their village, but instead goes to live with the Niaruna, wants to save them from the white man’s threat. Parachuting into their jungle home, he’s taken for a god sent from the heavens, and taught their ways. But even his good intentions bring disaster upon those he wants to save. The missionaries-whether naive or downright craven-fare no better in their cross-cultural encounter. In this clash of rival gods, no one can emerge a winner.
“At Play in the Fields of the Lord” gets off to a clumsy, stagey start, but as soon as the Niaruna (a fictional tribe resembling the Yanomami) enter the picture, the movie is galvanized. Babenco seems fully engaged whenever the two cultures cross paths. When the kindly, deluded missionary Martin Quarrier (Aidan Quinn), his uptight wife (Kathy Bates) and their son first encounter “the wild ones,” or when the Indians, high on native drugs, surround their encampment in an orgiastic nightlong wake for the dead, the movie achieves a rare and rich level of suspense. Babenco doesn’t sentimentalize the Stone Age Niaruna, but he deeply respects their ways. At its best, “At Play” takes you to a dangerous, beautiful terra incognita where all the moral road signs have been erased.
At its shakiest, the movie seems to be missing crucial pieces and transitions. Moon, the pivotal character, remains much too sketchy a figure: we need to know more about him for his fate to resonate. Babenco doesn’t have a firm grip on his cast; the actors don’t mesh into an ensemble. Quinn is quietly touching as Martin, but Tom Waits, as Berenger’s scuzzy sidekick, is completely over the top, and Daryl Hannah seems at sea as the unhappy wife of John Lithgow’s egregiously self-righteous missionary. Lithgow and Bates, as the two most obtuse Christians, alternate between moments of power and moments of staginess. It may seem odd to complain that a three-hour movie is too short, but Matthiessen’s novel may have needed more space to deliver all its riches. Yet even with broken wings, this story can fly.
