Minority (Atheist) Report: A Fool's Errand

Rating: 10/10 (23 January 2017)

This reaction to "Silence" is from the perspective of an atheist. And my attitude throughout the film was influenced by my knowledge of the novel Shogun. In that book the Japanese were distrustful of European influence and infiltration. They knew or suspected that the first step towards outside dominance starts with the innocent-seeming proselytizers of "the Word." By today's view "historians now describe missionaries as arrogant and rapacious imperialists. Christianity became not a saving grace but a monolithic and aggressive force that missionaries imposed upon defiant natives. Indeed, missionaries were now understood as important agents in the ever-expanding nation-state, or "ideological shock troops for colonial invasion whose zealotry blinded them." (Quoted from Google) The church gets mistreated or brutalized and the foreign country sends in the army. Some examples of this are South America: they all speak Spanish (or Portuguese) and are ruled by European descendants; Parts of Africa have the same history. There's India where it partly happened, and Australia. Perhaps Japan knew or suspected such an outcome as well.
So I wasn't all that sympathetic to the two missionaries of this story. Plus their whole point of view was that they had the "Truth". There are thousands of religions that all claim the same thing. What makes the Western Christian version the REAL Truth? Nothing. It depends on where you were raised. That they all think they have the answer convinces me that none do. But it also convinces me that Man must invent some story, some explanation of why he's here, how he got here, and how he's supposed to act. I guess we'd be lost without such a backdrop. The other apes (chimpanzees, gorillas and such) don't seem to need that. Their "God" is the alpha male of their band. For homo sapiens that would be a king but we seem to need more than that. So we have one who resides above the clouds. But the clouds are below us as well since the world is round so exactly where would we point to locate this Super King? You can't point everywhere so that's another reason why I'm convinced there is no Super King. All this makes the journey of Fathers Rodrigues and Garupe somewhat pathetic and somewhat tiresome. Missionaries remind me of Jehovah's Witnesses who go around (KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK) waking up nurses and other folks who work nights wanting to know, "Can we come inside and pray with you?" ("Cuz we have the answer, the one and only answer.") I suppose this message was an improvement on cultures where there was out and out cannibalism but beyond that it was and is an intrusion. Still, the torture and murder was extreme and hard to watch. But one reviewer pointed out that Scorsese neglected to show that in Spain and Portugal at that very time there was an Inquisition going on with equal cruelty and murder towards Jews and Protestants. I therefore celebrated the entrance of the former Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson). He took righteousness out of the equation and just tried to fulfill a need he saw. And he seemed to come by that wisdom the hard way – discovering that nothing else worked or made any sense. So I liked the outcome reached by Father Rodrigues. Just as an afterthought, did anyone besides me notice that all that praying brought about no results, except internally (and then only in certain cases)? Did anyone else get the idea that no one is listening? Anyway, I loved the ocean post card scenery. And I liked being plopped down in an earlier time in history. I liked the film somehow.