Flabby

Rating: 7/10 (16 May 2018)

Two young Jesuit priests, Rodrigues and Garrpe. secretly arrive in Japan on the very cold trail of Father Ferreira. Japan has been seeking to abolish Christianity by way of mass executions, but there are still pockets of secret Christians. Father Ferreira, it is rumoured, has denied his faith and turned native Japanese - could this deeply disturbing suggestion be true, or is it just a rumour to serve Japanese political ends?
I have never before seen a film with the word "apostatised" used once, let alone the number of times it is used in this film. But since apostasy is at the heart of the matter, I suppose that is fair enough.
Martin Scorsese sets out to dramatise a true(ish) episode towards the end of the Jesuit priesthood's attempted conversion of Japan, at the point where the Japanese establishment is taking a hard line to stamp it out, and the main method they are using is barbaric physical punishment of the native Christian population as pressure to force the priesthood into publicly denying their faith.
This is solid drama material, but Scorsese fails to make a satisfying film of it: large sections are boring and repetitive as the two young priests, admirably played by Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver, beat themselves up endlessly about how horrible it all is (and, to be fair, they are right) and how God isn't listening to them. The Almighty does chip in a few words towards the end, but they are not terribly helpful.
The dramatisation could have been better. The Japanese character Kichijiro repeatedly denies his faith then seeks confession and forgiveness, to the extent that Rodrigues quietly loses any sympathy for him. I kept waiting for this to have a dramatic payoff, but it never did.
In fact, for a film which ran for nearly 3 hours, the dramatic heart could have been condensed into half the running time: as it was, I felt nearly as punished as the two priests.
The barbarity of punishment is shown but, thankfully, not dwelled upon. But we really didn't need as much footage of the two priests in a bamboo hut with dirty fingernails, bemoaning their lot, as we got.
There is a good film in here somewhere, but it badly needed to shed some weight before it went out in public.