A Jarring and Challenging Experience

Rating: 8/10 (4 February 2017)

Martin Scorsese's poetic passion project might be the greatest rendering of the human spirit in the last decade. The film explores faith, spirituality, love, betrayal, doubt and one's unyielding conviction to remain true to his beliefs. This film is not a typical box-office smasher because of its harsh subject matter and deeply rooted religious themes. However, it is still a powerful piece of cinema with phenomenal acting, and mind boggling religious actions, revelations and interpretations.
The story follows two Jesuit priests and their quest to promote Christianity while trying to locate their mentor, Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson) who, according to rumors, 'surrendered the faith.' They travel to the barren 'swamp' of Japan where Christianity is outlawed, punishable by death. The priests endure hell through spiritual, psychological, and physical torment. They face starvation, persecution, and poor living conditions on top of doubting their own beliefs about whether God is even listening to them or if God exists at all. The film explores these themes with an open mind that could support or refute the notion of God's presence in the film. Scorsese treats the material with somber respect, ambiguity, and superb technical skill.
To match the gravity of the religious themes and seriousness of the film is the fantastic acting, writing, cinematography, and directing. The previously mentioned are all great and should have all gotten Oscar nominations. How they didn't is truly a sin. Andrew Garfield kills it with another emotionally powerful performance. His performance carries the movie even during boring parts. It shows lots of similarity to his performance in "Hacksaw Ridge" in how he plays a faithful man not willing to renounce his beliefs. Adam Driver was pretty good as well, though not on the same level as Andrew Garfield. Liam Neeson also delivers a morally complex performance that makes up for all his throwaway action movie roles. The Japanese actors especially the ones who played Inoue and Kichijiro were also very convincing yet it was hard to make out exactly what they were saying at times. This made it somewhat hard to get the full scope of what they were talking about in each given scene.
*Spoilers and Sermonizing begin here* During the obligatory finale of Father Rodrigues' (Andrew Garfield) trial, he is faced with the heart wrenching choice of either denouncing God by trampling on a picture of Christ or remaining faithful which would lead to innocent Japanese Christians being tortured to death. Through persuasion of Father Ferreira's claims to denounce God and by presumably hearing God's voice telling him to trample on the image, Father Rodrigues tramples on the image of Christ. In doing so he saves Christian lives and ends up living a life of silent disposition towards the faith. He takes a Japanese name, job, and helps the elite find religious objects in the country to destroy.
Now some may think that Father Rodrigues is a hero due to the fact that he publicly, yet maybe not privately, denounced God to save the lives of others. But according to the Catholic Church's teaching, committing an evil act (apostatizing) never justifies a good result (saving tortured Christians). But perhaps under the strenuous circumstances Father Rodrigues may have been pardoned especially since he heard the 'Voice of God.' But was that really God? Couldn't that have been his own insanity or maybe even the Devil's voice? Because would God really give contradictory instructions to apostatize after so many people had died already in the name of the faith. Father Rodrigues' denunciation resembles Saint Peter's with the cock crowing but unlike Saint Peter, Rodrigues never sought repentance. Although the very last image of the movie, in which Rodrigues is holding a tiny cross, helped mitigate his apostasy because it symbolized that his faith had never died and he practiced his faith in silence. Yet the faith is not something you practice internally. It's something you practiced externally with others. And what better way to externally share your faith then to openly die for it. *Spoilers and Sermonizing end here*
"Silence" is an important film although it may not necessarily abide by Church teaching, it certainly gives Christians and maybe other religions things to ponder and reflect on to help them understand the moral boundaries of their faith. However, it can also be a dangerous film for general audiences because they may leave the film thinking that the actions displayed by Father Rodrigues are justifiable, and that religion is something that should be privatized in silence.