Passion for Silence.

Rating: 9/10 (25 January 2017)

Im an agnostic and this is a honest review about the passion project "Silence" by Martin Scorsese. A story based on the novel by Shūsaku Endō about 2 Jesuit priests who travel to Japan in order to find what happened to their mentor and propagate Catholicism. Novel was published in 1966. I have read a bunch of different reviews about this film. Some praise it, some say its one of the most boring movies they ever stumbled upon that only religious people will enjoy.
For starters this is a very slow phased movie that will take a lot of patience to sit through. I cant say that it is pro-Christian or anti- Christian, because there are several ways to interpret this movie. How far would you go to keep your faith intact, how much suffering you would go through or seeing other people suffer and get tortured before renouncing god? It raises some important questions.
"Silence" is a very intelligent film, that will make you put your thinking cap on whether you are religious or not (open mind). Overall very great acting from the cast. Especially Garfield and the Japanese actors in supporting roles. Felt like Driver needed some more screen time though, he didn't have that big of an impact in "Silence". The cinematography is stunning which was noticed by the Academy by a nomination on best cinematography-category. Hard movie to rate and to find enjoyable, but in few years this might just be known as an overlooked masterpiece. In my opinion one of Martys most original movies, and as mentioned before: a passion project, which shows.
Dedication that Scorsese had about making this, was extraordinary and that needs to be respected.