Epic Scorcese

Rating: 8/10 (15 February 2017)

Martin Scorcese puts his creative heart on the screen for two hours and forty minutes with this extremely personal religious voyage through 1600's Buddhist Japan. Jesuit missionaries, Rodrigues(Andrew Garfield) and Garuppe(Adam Driver) are sent to Japan to search for Father Ferreira(Liam Neeson), who has disappeared and allegedly renounced his faith in order to avoid torture and execution by the Japanese. The pair of priests encounter Catholic converts on their journey and conduct mass in secret because of the severe penalties, including crucifixion, for those practicing the banned religion. Garfield is tremendous as Father Rodrigues and Liam Neeson transcends the deeply moving material, as Scorcese allows his actors to shine, including a mostly Japanese cast. The last fifteen minutes are as memorable as anything I have ever seen. The tortures on display are excruciating to watch, but are historically accurate and necessary. 2016 is a strange year for film, as we have the releases of both Silence and La La Land. The latter has a best director nomination but Martin Scorcese was ignored by the Academy; what a disgrace. Time will prove this to be a major mistake.