Powerful Kurosawa homage by the great Martin Scorsese

Rating: 10/10 (15 December 2016)

Saw an advance screening: This is a powerful film, incredibly challenging and well-acted. Amazing location footage, historical details from 17th century Japan, and depiction of a clash of cultures between East and West. Scorsese is clearly doing a Kurosawa homage here, as the film has an old-fashioned epic feeling to it. As for the plot based on Shusako Endo's historical novel, it's remarkably even-handed. At the time of the isolationist Tokugawa shogunate, which only ended in 1867 after American gunboats forced Japan's ports to reopen to trade, the Japanese clearly saw the Catholic faith as symbolic of Western cultural and political takeover. But does that justify the torture, coercion, and killing of Christians to make them abandon their faith? We might consider a historical analogy: When the Spanish later felt the same way, driving the Moors out of Spain and forcing those who remained to convert to Catholicism because of the perception that Islam symbolized cultural and political takeover, do we excuse the Spanish Inquisition? The best answer might be that we can understand even if we do not excuse violent push-backs against invading cultures. There is perhaps an allegory here, as well, to the current plight of Syrian refugees and their reception or non-reception by European nations. In any event, the themes here are rich and complex, and the cast -- particularly Garfield, Neeson, Driver, and the masterful Japanese actor who plays the inquisitor -- are outstanding. This is Scorsese at his finest, eschewing black-and-white thinking in favor of complex moral dilemmas. I don't think I've ever seen a mainstream Hollywood film that is as intelligent about addressing cross-cultural and inter-religious dialogue as "Silence." The anguish of religious faith is part of what's going on here, but it's only the centerpiece of a very rich cinematic canvas.