“Silence” is an outlier in movies. It was adapted from a book of
the same name by Japanese author Shusako Endo. That book is a
fictionalized account of a historical occurrence. The persecution of
Christians in mid-17th Century Japan. The Christian evangelists are
Portugese Jesuits. (This movie substitutes English for Portugese but
the Japanese stays the same.) Persecution and even martyrdom do not
faze the Jesuits. As one states in the movie, “the blood of martyrs
are the seed of the church.” And yes, the Japanese shogunate starts
realizing this. So instead of making martyrs out of priests for not
apostatizing (renouncing God’s name publicly) they start torturing
and killing innocent Christian Japanese civilians, mostly just poor
fisherman, whether or not they apostatize until the priests apostatize. This is a much harder
choice for the Jesuit missionaries. They were ready to give up their
lives for God, but they weren’t so ready to watch other men do it
when an apostasy by the priest would save them.
There is much pain and cruelty and heavy theological talk in this
movie. Almost immediately it becomes apparent why it took the director
Martin Scorsese twenty years to get funding to make the movie. There are no commercial reasons for making the
film. But that in itself is a reason to go see it. For it is a good
movie and a good movie about this subject matter is something you probably haven't seen before.
The movie starts in Portugal with more bad news. The persecutions
have been off and on in Japan for fifty years now and all the
Christians have resorted to practicing in secret. But this latest news is the most dire yet. Father Ferrera has been reported to have
apostasized in public, changed his name and taken
a Japanese wife. Two young Jesuit missionaries in Lisbon do not
believe it. After all, Ferrara was their teacher. These two men are
Father Rodrigues (played by Andrew Garfield) and Father Garupe
(played by Adam Driver). Over the concerns of their monsignor, they set
off to Japan to find the truth and Ferrara. They are told that theirs will be the last mission the Jesuits take to Japan as it is now too dangerous for any
Christians there.
Indeed it is too dangerous for Christians there. Rodrigues and Garupe succeed in finding a
poor fishing village inhabited by secret Christians. They say mass and give absolution under dark of
night. But sooner or later, simply by being there, they draw the
attention to the authorities somehow. And the authorities start
cruelly torturing to death all the poor men, women, and children that
look up to Rodrigues and Garupe for solace.
At this point, Rodrigues and Garupe split up as Rodrigues goes
further to look for Ferrara. And giving meaning to the title of the
movie, he starts to have a crisis of faith. Where is God when his
faithful are going through unimaginable tortures? Good question.
“Silence” is a good complementary film with Scorsese's last sincere
exploration of Christianity, 1987’s “The Last Temptation of
Christ.” (Fun fact: That movie was one of the reasons why there
weren’t all that many blatantly religious movies between 1987 and
2004’s ‘The Passion of the Christ.’ It turns out when certain
Christians don’t like how Christ is portrayed (in that movie 100%
human and 100% divine) they denounce and picket. Movie studios wanted
none of that.) It reflects the sincere interest of a Roman Catholic
and what it means to have faith in the most trying of times. I heard
that he held a screening for Papa Frank, another Jesuit. I’m not
surprised by Papa Frank's openness.
The movie falters somewhat in its casting of Andrew Garfield. Try as
I might, I had hard time seeing him as someone who would have lived
in the 17th Century. He seems too smooth in the face for
that. I actually think this movie could have been more effective if
Andrew and Adam Driver had switched roles. Adam Driver doesn’t
really look normal and that I feel is what these characters require.
The Japanese in the movie, unknown unless I’m betraying my lack of
knowledge of Japanese movies, are cast perfectly. Shin’ya Tsumakato
plays Mokichi and really looks like he has been living hard in a dirt
poor fishing village all his life. Yosuke Kubozuka plays the
interpreter Kichijiro. This is a rather pathetic person who ultimately draws
less of the audience’s contempt as it does its pity. Finally, the
big bad inquisitor Inoue is played by Issei Ogata as not big and bad
and not even particularly intimidating. Actually he’s rather polite
and goes out of his way to reason with Father Rodrigues about the
futility of spreading Christianity to Japan. Of course he’s also
evil, anyone who tortures and kills innocent people always is, but
like all well written characters, his stance is explained well and
understood, which makes Father Rodrigues’s reaction to it all the more meaningful.
“Silence” is a good movie. For its kind of movie, it's one of
the best. All too easy a thing to accomplish given there are so few movies
like it.
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