A Harrowing Journey

Rating: 9/10 (17 May 2019)

First and foremost, I want to say that this is one of the most faithful adaptions I've ever seen come to screen (though, surprisingly, the film ends with a little more hope). Scorsese recreates scenes perfectly, pulling in recurring images from the novel, whole lines of dialogue, but most importantly, the themes that permeate slowly, simmering through this boiling caldron of a film. This film is not fast paced; it builds slowly towards a depressing ending, much like the tide slowly coming in to drown the Christians tied to the crosses on the beach. The hope we find here is faint and far away, because the themes it deals with are some of the harder ones we as Christians have to deal with, particularly facing persecution while dealing with the distance of God.
This film is grueling and hard to watch, but purposefully so. I would argue that this is one of the most important Christian films ever made, but, sadly, the R rating will turn a lot of Christian viewers away. If you can get past the brutality of this movie, the rewards you will reap will be worth it. We, as Christians today, don't face the same persecution that these people did hundreds of years ago, but there are still moments of trial in each of our lives. All of us must wrestle with the distance of God, and why he allows certain things to happen in our own way. Know that God is still there, even if it sometimes seems like he's so far away.
Have faith, brothers and sisters.
In the words of Dostoyevsky: "We degrade God too much, ascribing Him to our ideas in vexation at being able to understand Him. I repeat: it's hard to have an answer for what is not given to man to understand."