2 hrs & 41 min, color,
2016
Sometimes we encounter motion
pictures in which it is considerably difficult to know who to root for or what
to root for, and yet we find the content compelling enough that we have to stay
with it. I long ago lost all interest in
missionary enterprises designed to carry the Christian Gospel to the “heathen”
and convert them. I have the greatest
admiration for those who travel abroad to heal or to feed or to educate or to
rebuild what has been laid waste, but counting converts is really for me a
distortion of what Jesus meant by the Great Commission. So I approached “Silence”, Martin Scorcese’s
epic about the sufferings of Catholic priests in seventeenth century Japan,
with a bit of caution. What vested
interest had I in the success or failure of their efforts? Why would I root for them, and what would
there be in the hostile acts of Japanese rulers that would enlist my
sympathy? I need not have worried. More is at stake in the conflict portrayed
than I could have imagined.
“Silence”, it must be said,
is not a general audience movie, not something to be watched when you are
fatigued at the end of the day and desirous of relaxation, not something to be
screened on a passenger airliner during a long cross country trek and you need
a break from the stress of the trip you are taking. Those who screen it should choose the time
carefully, setting close to three unhurried hours aside to do some hard
thinking, for that is what it demands of you; it is a thinking person’s
movie.
In its early sequences it
does not appear to be so. A struggle for
survival gets underway. The Emperor has
decided that everything western must be abolished from the land, which includes
a deeply entrenched Catholic Church of Portuguese origin. Priests (referred to all through this story
as padres) are being tortured in a manner most brutal in the opening scene. We
are told in narration that they have requested this test of their faith, but
none of those we see seems the least bit stoic in his attempt to endure. We have reason at this point to ask where
Scorcese is taking us.
Scorcese was raised Catholic
but has over the years referred to himself as a lapsed one. What he actually is in relation to the Church
of Rome remains something of a puzzle, I think even to himself. He has all but admitted as much. He may be lapsed, which is to say that he may
not be a regular practicing adherent to the disciplines of that faith, but he
has not quite been able during his lifetime to shake its influence. We have seen strange elements of religious
obsession in characters he has created in his many dramatic screenplays. He even adapted Nicholas Kazantzakis’s “The
Last Temptation of Christ” and in his 1974 work “Mean Streets” (which I still
consider one of his best) he creates a troubled youth torn between his
involvement with fellow hoods and his strange enthrallment by priest and ritual
and Confessional.
For close to a quarter of a
century he labored to bring to the screen the 1966 novel “Silence” by a man
named Shusaku Endu. He enlisted the
skillful services of screenwriter Jay Cocks, who in my estimation deserves as
much credit as Scorcese for the brilliance of the end result. It follows the lives of two young priests,
Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Garupe (Adam Driver) living in Europe who
volunteer to travel to Japan and try to locate a beloved mentor of theirs named
Ferreira (Liam Neeson) who lived there for many years but has disappeared and
according to rumor has abandoned the faith and is either still living there
somewhere or has died a martyr’s death.
Their bishop is not inclined to let them go; Christians are being
murdered all over Japan, and he supposes that the young men could be put to
better use somewhere else. But their
importunate, impassioned plea finally persuades the bishop to release them, the
bishop supposing it to be a divine calling.
They fear for Ferreira’s life and feel greatly indebted to him, though
it has been years since they were his pupils.
So they go and are smuggled
into the country by an ex-believer now living a derelict’s life, a man they are
not sure they can trust. In fact, just
about everyone they meet in their stealthy travels is possibly a betrayer. I was soon more fearful for their safety than
for their mentor’s. Their dark passage
through terrain with which they are not the least familiar draws us in and
makes us deeply apprehensive.
Soon they make contact with
the remnant of faithful Catholics in Japan who are starved for priestly
leadership, craving the Mass and the Confessional and the rite of Baptism for
their offspring. The young priests press
their search for Ferreira, until the Emperor’s legions get wind of what is
happening and close in upon them and their following.
For the first hour or so of the
picture the two padres are the epitome of courage and confidence, armed with
intelligence and priestly training. They
administer the sacraments to droves of natives who have been living in secret
and remain devout, even in the most dangerous of circumstances. But a change begins to take place inside the
two men as they witness the ordeal the people they are serving have to
endure. The solidarity of their own
faith begins to erode. They gradually
become aware of the fact that what they are doing is putting so many innocent
worshippers’ lives in danger and they soon lose their innocence, to say the
least. What is ultimately lost or gained
is the subject of this lengthy odyssey.
Garupe’s death from drowning
launches Rodrigues into a most painful and tormenting ordeal and makes him
quite vulnerable, once captured by the authorities, in facing the Emperor’s
Inquisitor, the man most to be feared.
As portrayed by Issei Ogata, this aging Japanese functionary proves to
be something other than a bloodthirsty beast.
There is very much a thought-out method in the madness he
perpetrates. What he requires of
Rodrigues is far more than the endurance of physical torture. The Inquisitor turns out to be a master
manipulator of the mind and heart; he seems to know the man behind the collar
already when he falls into his lair.
Along with his powerful intrusion comes another Japanese personality and
presence known as the Interpreter, played most engagingly by Tadanobu
Asano. These two cunning, shrewd men
shake Rodrigues to the very depth of his soul and just may do the same for the
audience.
The cast is huge; Scorcese
must have had to spend months putting it together. Just imagining this staggers my mind. And a tremendous amount of ground is covered
in this masterwork. The chasm between
human strength and human weakness! The
universality of truth! The arrogance of
the will! Forgiveness – human and
divine! Despair! Anguish! The gift of mercy! Love and fidelity! The seeming silence of God! They all play their mysterious part in the
course of events. And there comes the
moment when Rodrigues has to perform the most painful of all acts of love. What would that be? I will leave those who choose to view the
film to find out how that estimate is made.
It is at that point that I believe the wisdom behind the writing of
Cocks and Scorcese becomes most apparent.
You may be wondering whether
or not the young priest finds his long lost mentor. The answer is yes, and Ferreira’s appearance opens
up a whole new sphere of torment for him.
Liam Neeson gives a very wonderfully modulated, magnetic performance as
a man who has undergone a strange transformation, one that has rewarded him in
one respect and bound him in yet another.
It would be unthinking of me to neglect sounding some strong praise as
well for Andrew Garfield’s performance.
He is in just about every scene and is consistently effective in filling
the shoes of this bedeviled young priest.
There is much suspense in
“Silence”. Nothing one might expect to
happen seems to happen at all. Almost
every twist and turn of circumstances brings with it a new shock or a new
challenge to the unsuspecting viewer’s assumptions. Nothing is neat, either visual or audial or
plot-wise. There are many encounters with danger and more than enough times
when we must watch somebody’s execution or torturing, some of which is
bizarre. There is one very explicit
beheading. This is a film for thinkers,
but the collision of minds is not portrayed in ivory tower surroundings. It finally raises the unspoken question of
how much power a captor can exert over someone else’s destiny. It is a deep dark journey of spirit and conscience. Though I cannot recommend it for a general
audience, I am so very pleased that I discovered it. All who approach the imperatives of religious
faith with an open mind should be able to connect with it.
To read other entries in my
blog, please consult its website:
enspiritus.blogspot.com. To know
about me, consult the autobiographical entry on the website for Dec. 5, 2016.
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