Powerful, neither too obscure as not to be accessible and neither too obvious as to not be lyrical.

Rating: 7/10 (10 February 2020)

Garfield's a tour de force and the Japanese actors and extras are superb also. There's dirt on the fingers, in the nails, missing teeth and somehow a palpable heat.
Use of natural sound is appropriately pointed and subtle in a film with so little music. Although the mix is odd, as if Scorsese was using recording techniques from the heyday of the religious picture. Garfield is an empathetic human supported by his faith, an equally important Adam Driver sees his faith and the actions that support that faith above all. It's a simple and elegant tale, free of too much judgement and too much didacticism. It's a slow, beautiful, enlightening, sometimes funny tale with a hand in the Terrence Malick camp, a leg in Apocalype Now and a head wedged in Shogun.
Solid, touching, perhaps a little pointless, or seemingly irrelevant, but good quality nonetheless.