Scorsese's Exploration Of Faith And Spirituality Fell Short

Rating: 6/10 (15 January 2017)

Martin Scorsese does another film in the tradition of his former films like "The Last Temptation Of Christ" which explores religious themes such as faith in the face of oppression,spirituality and the conflict of divine nature and human nature in this film entitled "Silence".It was based on the 1966 novel written by Shūsaku Endō of the same title as well as the 1971 Japanese film adaptation of the said novel entitled "Chinmoku" (English translation:Silence).It stars Andrew Garfield,Adam Driver,Tadanobu Asano,Ciarán Hinds and Liam Neeson. Director Martin Scorsese and Jay Cocks wrote the screenplay together.
The story starts when Portuguese Jesuit priest Fr.Alessandro Valignano receives the news that Father Cristóvão Ferreira,who went to Japan has already renounced his Roman Catholic faith.Despite knowing the on- going Christian oppression and the danger they are facing,Fathers Francisco Garupe and Sebastião Rodrigues decided to embark a journey in the country with the help of an alcoholic fisherman Kichijiro. All of them land in a village that consist of many Japanese Christians.
As the story progresses, we get to see both Rodrigues and Garupe witness the on-going violence that has been happening in the country due to Christian oppression.In the end,we get to see themselves also get arrested by the Japanese soldiers with aid of Kichijiro. We also get to see the meeting between Father Rodrigues and Ferreira,who apparently has already apostatized being a Catholic and has become already a Buddhist and have immersed into becoming a Buddhist and into the Japanese culture as well.We get to see their exchange of words with Ferreira trying to convince Rodrigues to renounce his faith for the sake of living a longer life as well and to end the suffering,torture and oppression that he is undergoing as well as those that he is witnessing which included the death of many Christian Japanese villagers as well as that of Garupe,who was stabbed in the middle of the ocean.When Rodrigues could no longer bear his suffering emotionally, psychologically and physically,he decided to apostatize in the end and renounce his Catholic faith just like Ferreira as well. But when he passed away and he given a Buddhist burial, interestingly Rodrigues held a small cross in his hand.
After watching this film two days before this review was being written,it led me to the original 1971 Japanese film "Chimoku".Personally,I felt that this was basically more of a remake of "Chimoku" rather than having an American version of the Endō's novel. The interesting exchange of words between Ferreira and Rodrigues from apostasy, God's divine nature particularly being silent especially when man needs His response the most after prayer, and the renunciation of faith could only be a formality to live longer were all explored.Too bad that I just felt the lack of intensity in it and the exploration of these themes was somewhat lacking.
Don't get me wrong. Andrew Garfield and Liam Neeson as Rodrigues and Ferreira respectively could have given a better performance for they are both talented actors. I just felt the screenplay fell short.I blame both screenwriters -Jay Cocks and director Martin Scorsese - for it. Rodrigues just gave up his faith and I felt that he never experienced so much pain physically,psychologically and emotionally from it when he lived as a Japanese pagan and got immersed into their country's culture. Also,the suffering that he had to go through felt lacking as well as the desire want to live longer.I felt that wanting less Christian Japanese villagers killed wasn't enough considering he was a priest - who loves Christ the most.Besides,aren't the Christian Japanese villagers willing to die for Christ? They didn't even stepped on and spat on the Christian carvings and were undergoing a lot of sufferings for very a long time and yet never abandoned their faith.
What's even worse is that the issue of martyrdom among the Japanese villagers wasn't fully explored as well. The film showed that these Christian converts died due to lack of education.Nothing more.Even the complexity of the character of Kichijiro was left at that reason as well together with the on-going Christian persecution that was occurring in Japan during the 17th century. That is why it somehow felt short due to lack of full exploration of the themes about faith and spirituality.It also never took into consideration their pride as a Japanese people and why their love for Jesus is greater unlike the Japanese soldiers,whose love for country resisted Western influence that all pointed to Christianity was definitely mentioned.
If you want to see a better film,check out the Japanese film "Chinmoku" for is a lot better than Scorsese's version.