Splendid but not for everybody

Rating: 8/10 (31 December 2018)

I've seen this movie three times by now and still think it's brilliant, yet it's not a movie for everybody. It's surely no coincidence that even Martin Scorsese had to struggle for 25 years to scrape together the funds to make it.
I can also understand why so many folks feel the movie is boring and too long even if to me it was neither boring nor too long. In fact, it feels just perfect.
The reason I suppose many people don't truly 'feel' this movie -an exception in Mr Scorsese's rich filmography- is because of its theme. For surely, in times of abundant secularism and reductionist materialism, a movie such as this one cannot be other than a dinosaur.
Essentially this is a movie about the genuine spiritual process of transcending implicit narcissism into an effulgence of humble, selfless Love. It is therefore a movie about the genuine path of authentic christianity.
What makes it a special movie, at least in my heart, is that it not only sharply portrays this process of self-transcendence but also makes the link to the collective missionary adolescence of historical christianity. For surely, the Japanese are very much refined in their cruelty, yet they clearly are much more sane and of a deeper (personal and cultural) wisdom than are the young Portuguese missionaries who remain by and large unaware of the unwarranted cultural superiority with which they approach the Japanese.
To bring all of this clearly into focus and allow for the story to reach its spiritual and historical apogee took close to three hours of masterful moviemaking.
Not to make this an overly long review: for those who are knowledgeable about the genuine (christian) path of self-transcendence into humbled Love, this is surely a masterful film. For others it is a boring waste of time.
Those who love this movie may also be interested in checking out "The Assassin" by Hsiao-hsien Hou. This movie is about the taoistic version of the same inner path of transcending attachment to emotions and your social identity of the past to arrive at ultimate immersion in the Tao or the natural way.