Nah. Just Nah

Rating: 3/10 (31 March 2020)

Just because Scorsese is undoubtedly a great cinematic genius it doesn't mean everything he does is great. The fawning reviews of Silence are, frankly embarrassing. For a very simple reason: despite the apparent themes, there's neither true faith nor spirituality here that remotely rings true. A true Christian would not allow so many innocent people to be tortured to death for what he pretends to believe in. There's religious self-indulgence here but very little heart, very little humanism, hell, very little genuine emotion. If a project takes 30 years to be born it should perhaps be let go of. This is a stillbirth right through. There's more humanity, emotion, love, hell, even Christian attributes in Ray Liotta's character in Goodfellas than in the whole of this movie with its assorted priests and their conceits. The idea of missionaries is a peculiar form of mental health issue spawned by the church empires of the European middle ages. But this movie skirts around this issue and never bites the bullet. While I do not for a moment condone the cruelty of the Japanese as depicted here, I totally get the sanity of their reaction time these invaders who would presume to change a centuries old cultural system. And Andrew Garfield does come across as someone mentally ill, living in a world of his own, totally divorced from the physical reality he lives in, a mission without real people in it. His gawky looks are also unfortunately not suited to this sort of project. His Adam's apple has a life of its own, a very distracting thing that costuming should perhaps have taken care of. The one single most brilliant scene is when the Japanese inquisitor narrates the story of the Japanese nobleman with the four beautiful concubines who were banished for quarrelling and vying for his favour. Thus he found peace. A powerful parable of how Japan saw the various European powers trying to infiltrate Japan. Emotionally I'm with the Japanese sentiment here, and I'm as European as Scorsese is. Scorsese should have listened to the point made by his very own script. Three stars for the gorgeous cinematography and the brief glimpses of Adam Driver.