Silence

Silence opens in Japan in the 1630s.  Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson), a Portuguese Jesuit, watches as many of his Japanese converts to Catholicism are tortured at a hot springs.  Word of Ferreira committing apostasy arrives in Portugal.  Two of Ferreira's disciples, Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Garrpe (Adam Driver) do not believe so holy a man as Ferreira could have committed apostasy; it is more likely a slanderous lie.  The two set out to determine the truth.

The pair arrive in China where they meet Kichijiro, a Japanese fisherman who speaks Portuguese and is nominally Christian.  With Kichijiro's help, the two Jesuits arrive in Japan and come in contact with two secretly Christian communities.  The two minister to them while discovering the tremendous level of oppression.  Eventually, a couple of Samurai and a dozen soldiers arrive to weed out Christians.  The Christian Japanese protect the Jesuits unto death.  Garrpe sees the futility of their efforts in Japan but Rodrigues provides a voice of optimism.

 

Rodrigues is not an admirable character.  Though he shows outwardly that he is a true believer, his thoughts become an endless stream of doubts when he faces real adversity.  He soon becomes an emotional wreck.  When placed among serene Japanese Christians prisoners who are heartened to see a priest, he is panicking and essentially says, "Why are you so calm? We're all gonna die!"  Yeah, lead by example, buddy.  His repeated outbursts and constant doubts give the impression that his faith was little more than a façade.  Had he actually read about the various martyrs of his faith?  If so, he didn't emulate them.  No, he too becomes an apostate and helps the Japanese root out Christian symbols that European traders try to smuggle to the underground communities.

 

The Japanese characters are far more interesting than the Europeans.  Kichijiro is a stand out character.  Repeatedly given the opportunity to die for his Christian faith, he instead commits apostasy.  After each instance, he soon returns to Father Rodrigues to confess and be absolved.  The pattern eventually becomes funny.  As such, he serves as some much needed comic relief in this dreary film.  Inquisitor Inoue (Issei Ogata) comes across as kindly and a touch goofy but will go to whatever lengths are required to achieve his objective.  His inoffensive voice and amiable smile contrasted sharply with his harsh policies.  Mokichi, one of the first Christians the Jesuits meet, is a generous and likeable man who accepts his terrible fate with a calm that Rodrigues admires but cannot later duplicate.

Not discussed in the movie is the Shimabara Rebellion.  In 1637, the largely Catholic population in southwestern Japan rebelled.  It started with the assassination of a tax collector and escalated.  When the rebels were crushed a few months later, 30,000 Japanese were dead.  The Shogunate blamed European Catholics, especially the Portuguese missionaries.  Christianity was outlawed and only persisted as the underground communities the movie portrays.  Shimabara was the last large-scale armed conflict in Japan until the end of the Shogunate in the 1860s.  Therefore, relative domestic tranquility ensued for 230 years after the foreign religion was uprooted.  Sound government policy?  Today, only 2.3% of Japanese are Christian.

Scorsese is a self-identified lapsed Catholic and the material he chooses demonstrates that.  This is the second religious movie of his that I have seen.  In The Last Temptation of Christ, he provided a look at Jesus had he dodged the Crucifixion and married Mary Magdalene.  Now he tells the story of apostate Jesuits in Japan.  In each case, the feeling toward Christianity is ambivalent at best.  When compared to his glorification of mobsters like Henry Hill in Goodfellas, one wonders if he admires the mafia more than the Roman Catholic Church.

 

At 2 hours and 41 minutes, this monotonous slog of a movie is best avoided.