Silence
Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Written by: Jay Cocks & Martin Scorsese - Based on the novel by Shûsako Endô
Starring: Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, Tadanobu Asano, Yôsuke Kubozuka, Issei Ogata, Shin’ya Tsukamoto, Yoshi Oida, Liam Neeson, Ciarán Hinds
Drama/History - 161 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 6 Jan 2016
Written by: Jay Cocks & Martin Scorsese - Based on the novel by Shûsako Endô
Starring: Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, Tadanobu Asano, Yôsuke Kubozuka, Issei Ogata, Shin’ya Tsukamoto, Yoshi Oida, Liam Neeson, Ciarán Hinds
Drama/History - 161 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 6 Jan 2016
Christianity is a one way conversation. People of the faith may feel divine inspiration or even a divine presence, but the verbal give and take is lacking. When the status quo is normal and the clergy spread the Gospel to eager ears and hungry mortal souls, an individual’s inner strength is not tested. However, when you’re strung upside down in a pit bleeding to death, stacked two by two and lit on fire, or scalded repeatedly with gurgling geyser water, you may be forgiven for questioning whether or not the invisible man is up there watching over you; because if he is, he maintains his strict silence even during your darkest, and most painful, hours. Martin Scorsese, no stranger to the study of religious faith and doubt through the medium of film, creates a beautiful and mesmerizing epic examining how and if even the most faithful can withstand the hellfire of Earth.
In the 17th century, Japan was closed to outsiders. During the previous era when feudal lords called the shots, Christianity spread across the insular nation to where Silence says 300,000 people were converted. After the Tokugawa shogunate took over, the clerics were exiled, forced to apostatize, or tortured to death along with anyone else who was discovered to be a secret Christian. Based on the 1966 historical novel by Shûsako Endô, itself based on the church scandal from the 17th century where it was rumored an influential priest lost his faith, converted to Buddhism, and took a Japanese wife, Silence is part truth-seeking mystery and part spiritual drama when two Portuguese priests sneak into Japan to find out what happened and tend to their lost flock of souls.
In the 17th century, Japan was closed to outsiders. During the previous era when feudal lords called the shots, Christianity spread across the insular nation to where Silence says 300,000 people were converted. After the Tokugawa shogunate took over, the clerics were exiled, forced to apostatize, or tortured to death along with anyone else who was discovered to be a secret Christian. Based on the 1966 historical novel by Shûsako Endô, itself based on the church scandal from the 17th century where it was rumored an influential priest lost his faith, converted to Buddhism, and took a Japanese wife, Silence is part truth-seeking mystery and part spiritual drama when two Portuguese priests sneak into Japan to find out what happened and tend to their lost flock of souls.
Father Sebastian Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge) is our narrator and lead protagonist. Along with his partner, Father Francisco Garupe (Adam Driver, Paterson), the two idealistic and devout Jesuit priests know they risk life and limb setting foot on Japan, but Father Ferreira, the rumored fallen priest was their teacher and spiritual mentor. The men believe all the talk about Ferreira is slander and lies. A man as resolute and aligned with God would never leave the faith, no matter the cost to himself. Father Rodrigues and Garupe’s quest is a search for a Colonel Kurtz figure; an elusive entity far up river whose actions cause ripple effects all the way down to the coast.
Scorsese chose Taiwan to stand in for coastal Japan near Nagasaki. The mountains crowd the beach and there is omnipresent smoke and fog emanating from underground ready to cloud understanding and obscure any truths to be found in this strange land. Shot mostly chronologically by Director of Photography Rodrigo Prieto, who also shot Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street, we plot the priests’s physical, emotional, and finally spiritual descent by the decimation of their bodies, strong and able early on, brittle as bread crust later. Garfield especially delivers a fascinating performance and a sublime voiceover, but I question the accents. The audience pretends Rodrigues and Garupe speak Portuguese even though most of the film is in English (for accessibility and financial reasons), but the priests talk in what sounds like a Portuguese accent. I suppose this helps us make believe easier, but the extra effort to slant into an Iberian accent even though the men are already speaking the wrong language is unnecessary.
The Japanese actors playing poor, illiterate fishermen and educated, elite samurai are allowed to speak in their native tongue and to a man, their performances are a remarkable ensemble. Shin’ya Tsukamoto as Mokichi, a poor fisherman practicing Christianity in private, sacrifices himself in a most gruesome manner to protect the precious priests and even more memorable are Father Rodrigues’s eventual main translator and torturer, played respectively by Tadanobu Asano (Thor: The Dark World) and Issei Ogata. Ogata chose a peculiar method to play the local Governor and Chief Inquisitor. He is at first patient and playful, almost effeminate. His voice squeaks as he orders barbaric atrocities and he even giggles at the foolishness of those who believe in the outsider philosophy.
Ideas and arguments regarding the efficacy and practicality of torture have been in the news for the past 15 years, ever since the aftermath of 9/11. The Inquisitor tortures Christians to convince them to renounce their faith and proclaim they worship a false idol. Even the Inquisitor knows they probably do not reconvert in their hearts, but it's the public display which is important. The prison camps used to enclose this wretched circus are familiar; Japanese prison camps have not changed much all the way to The Bridge of the River Kwai and Unbroken. There are an assortment of huts and longhouses encircling a large, dusty courtyard, so all may view what will happen when their name is called.
Scorsese dedicates the film “For the Japanese Christians and their pastors.” For whom were the Christian converts martyring themselves? Was it for the foreign God they are assured loves them and promises them everlasting paradise or was it for a more corporeal purpose as the Inquisitor alludes to? “The price for your glory is their suffering” he chastises Father Rodrigues. Rodrigues and Garupe do not appear on the outside to be prideful in converting the pagans, but perhaps the Inquisitor notices a familiar inner strength derived from successfully guiding and shaping men’s souls. Silence is worthy of repeat viewings and achieves the status of another Martin Scorsese masterpiece. The violence makes his other overt Christian study, 1988’s The Last Temptation of Christ, look like a Sunday stroll. However, even that notorious and celebrated film is now second fiddle to Scorsese’s new spiritual magnum opus.
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