Movie Review: Forcing Faith or Sharing Good News?
'Last Days' Weighs a Tragic History
The 2018 misadventure of missionary John Allen Chau has excited controversy and a two-hour NatGeo documentary. Now director Justin Lin — yes, that Justin Lin, who helmed several Fast and Furious films and helmed Star Trek: Beyond — takes a sober, and not unsympathetic, look at who Chau was, what he was doing and why, and how his actions affected others in the film Last Days.
(Photo: Sky Yang in ‘Last Days.’ Credit: Credit: Tanasak ‘Top’ Boonlam/Sundance Institute. Courtesy of Vertical)
Chau was determined to bring Christianity to the dwellers of North Sentinel Island in the Indian Ocean’s Bay of Bengal. The Sentinelese are an indigenous tribe protected by law who have had minimal contact with the outside world — but their very isolation, and the fact (or assumption) that they live according to traditions that date back thousands of years makes them an irresistible challenge (perhaps “target” is a better word) for those who are focused, whether for faith or fame, to introduce Christendom to them. Critics would say such an introduction would amount to an invasion, with the destruction of the tribe and its lifeways an inevitable result, and history tends to support that view.
Just that critique recurs in the film, as Chau — played by Sky Yang — sets his sights on the island, encouraged by missionary friends who view it as “the ultimate mission” and “the Mount Everest” of proselytizing. To them, it would seem, the goal is less to bring the light of their faith than to meet and overcome obstacles (including, one fears, a wish on the part of indigenous peoples simply to be left alone). It’s these friends — in particular, the gorgeous Kayla (Ciara Bravo) and the charismatic Chandler (Toby Wallace) — who egg Chau on, arguing against his objections and advising him to treat the challenge of evading the law, landing on the island, and preaching to the Sentinelese as an almost military objective. Indeed, at one point we even see a “boot camp” where missionaries can train to infiltrate terrain where they know they will not be welcome. “How far behind enemy lines are you willing to go?” Chandler asks, before eventually counseling Chau to fly under the radar of authorities that might stop him at the Indian border, scrub his social media of anything that displays his depth of belief, and pose as secular.
(Photo: Radhika Apte as Meera in The Last Days. Courtesy of Vertical)
In a framing story line, a police woman, Meera (Radhika Apte), pushes back against her patriarchal colleagues, including her supervisor (played by Naveen Andrews of Lost). As Meera’s investigation into the “missing American” continues, and her fears mount that he might have attempted to make contact with the famously unwelcoming Sentinelese, flashbacks describe Chau’s increasingly determined (and slightly unhinged) focus on landing on the island, Bible in hand, and making contact with the tribe. He’s not going into it blindly — “I’ve done the research!” he insists, and cites getting vaccinations as proof of his enlightened intentions — but neither does his vision make room for the notion that the Sentinelese have every right to their own land and to self-determination. “They are living in darkness!” Chau cries, pained at the thought.
Where does devotion cross into delusion? Where does a desire for friendship darken into forcing oneself onto others? The movie asks these questions, along with other, equally disturbing ones, and along the way makes pointed observations about our own lilfeways; the modern world itself seems to make an implicit argument for the Sentinelese, not us, having the right idea.
The Last Days premieres in theaters on October 24.