The 17th century Japan, the purging of Christianity.

Rating: Null/10 (17 February 2019)

I found this movie on DVD from my local public library, I watched it at home. My wife skipped.
This is a very long movie by today's standards but it tells a fascinating story. It is based on a novel but is faithful to the real story, of the reversal of Christianity in 17th century Japan.
In the 16th century the Roman Catholic Jesuits (Society of Jesus) spread the Gospel to Japan and at one time it is estimated 300,000 to 500,000 Japanese were converted to Christianity. That was the mission of the Church, to convert the whole world to Christianity.
The story in this movie is a fictional account of two priests from Portugal traveling to Japan to search for Father Ferreira, a real historical priest who renounced his Christian faith to become a scholar and writer in Japan. The two younger priests who search for them are unprepared for the persecution and torture that await them, all in the general effort to get all Christians to renounce their faith.
The movie is very hard to watch at times, the brutality of the Japanese and their ways of torture and killing. But it is a worthwhile movie in that it depicts the most extreme trials of one's beliefs and how one might react if you were in a similar situation. The younger priests are played by Andrew Garfield as Father Rodrigues and Adam Driver as Father Garupe. Liam Neeson is Ferreira.
Importantly, the story does not completely resolve until the last 10 seconds of the movie, miss that and you have watched 2 hours and 40 minutes without any answer to one key question.