Interesting historical narrative/ a bit repetitive

Rating: 7/10 (25 July 2019)

So a lot of the reviews on here are clearly taking the religious context of this film to the extreme calling it a Christian propaganda film to demonize Japanese history or Buddhism as a whole but I genuinely don't believe Martin Scorsese had that as an agenda nor would he put his talent to channel that kind of negativity. This movie is based on a book so the story tells of two Portuguese Catholic priests who are at first going on a mission to japan to see if there father mentor truly apostatized their faith. When they end up getting to Japan they find Japanese Christians who have to hide their beliefs due to the severe punishment enforced by the Japanese government at the time. Although the main character shows his will power in trying to uphold his Christian teachings and quest to save the local villages restored faith in Christianity the story is not supposed to tell the audience to be a Christian or show a weepy story about the suffering Christians have endured through out times of persecution. To me it's merely showing a historical account of what was happening throughout Japan at this time in the 17th century and really makes you think about the psychology of man and how much the main character will endure before ending the suffering of others or himself for a God who won't answer him back in his prayers and pleads. I will say the movie could be much shorter but I can see why it was drug on in some regards. The repetitive torture scenes or raids on villages do get a bit dry but are trying to emphasize a point at the same time. Very little scoring as far as music is concerned and the audio mixing was strange in some of the dialogue (minor inconvenience but stuck out in some scenes). Overall the last 25-30 minutes really make you think about what the films central message is and shows an interesting historical narrative. Was the main character too caught up in his faith to sacrifice the church's doctrines or were his choices trying to replicate the image of Christ's biblical story in a Strange ego driven craze. All adds to a great story and for the record I have no religious bias in this review to all the trolls claiming this movie is religiously motivated by the director