United States, 2016
Directed by Martin Scorsese
With Andrew Garfield (Padre Rodrigues), Adam Driver (Padre Garupe), Liam Neeson (Padre Ferreira), Asano Tadanobu (the interpreter), Ogata Issei (Inoue), Kubozuka Yôsuke (Kichijiro)

Two young Jesuits priests, Padre Rodrigues and Padre Garupe, set out to travel to Japan in 1638 to find Padre Ferreira, who used to teach them the faith, has led a proselytizing drive in Japan but is now said to be an apostate. As soon as they arrived they are welcomed by villagers eager to have Christian pastors among them; the padres strive to find and help as many Christians as they could under a climate of fear; they would even go different ways. Rodrigues is arrested by the authorities, led by Governor Inoue, who acts as a kind of Inquisitor. It is the start of a long conversation that alternates respect and cruelty. The prisoner’s faith is tested by the provocative statements of his interlocutors, including Ferreira, and the death of many fellow Christians, including Garupe, and he eventually would make the most inconceivable action, and then going the indigenous way.
Inoue’s tale, at one point of the conversation, of a local governor losing his mind because of his four quarreling wives seems at first irrelevant. The explanation he gives is crucial: the new military rulers fear the Christians not because of theological rivalry but because their priests come from foreign countries that could take this opportunity to meddle in Japanese affairs. This is an important point to make; there is a good political reason to the persecutions the padres witness; it is not a far-fetched fear when you think of what happened in other parts of the world, that is the growing loss of independence of old states. Then, there is the impossibility for Japanese leaders and thinkers to get what Christianity can bring to their culture. The viewpoint is not made out of the blue, but after a careful study, and Ferreira supports this conclusion he painfully reached for himself. Japanese converts tend to hold misconceptions that weaken the Christian tenets and betray the strength of past beliefs; this is already a fact for the audience as earlier incidents pointed to the gap between the padres’ opinions and their flocks. The first thing to say about this movie, and to praise, is the honest light it sheds on the Togukawa’s Japan. The hostility and the culture are clearly explained and Inoue, the political power’s symbol, is no mere caricature, for all his cruelty (torture and violence appear firsthand, but this is what the padres must face).
The answer Rodrigues makes to Inoue’s story claims that the Church is the only wife Christians can have and that Inoue probably misunderstands the faith. He earlier felt to be like the first believers in the Roman catacombs when saying the mass in the village where he is sheltered after his arrival. Rodrigues, a nice-looking and enthusiastic Portuguese young man, is a true believer, who speaks a lot: the film gets him reading aloud the letters he sends to his China-based superior. The words clearly describe an optimistic pastor convinced Japan can become a Christian nation and that his mission is not unlike Christ’s. However, in the face of tragic hurdles, doubts grow; even when he answers Inoue’s anecdote, he is no longer so sure of God’s support. True, that was what Inoue reckoned – to undermine the position and opinion of the priest in a wily and relentless way. But it may be the ground was easy to tread. For all his love for his God, the Portuguese just cannot cope with a reality that is too foreign to him and his academic and zealous principles, a reality standing a world away from a young missionary’s dream. The violence carried out by the political power is a horrible trial, but even more unbearable is the idea that conversions were a mirage. The character of Kichijiro, his guide, claiming his love for God but always ready to apostatize, deftly furthers the point while permanently holding to Rodrigues the image of Judas, the betrayer whose motives were left unexplained. A powerful irony in this journey across the Japanese verdure and the civilizational rift crops up: Rodrigues’s acts and sentiments follow the same path than Ferreira’s; he ends up being as Japanese as his mentor and cut from the devotion and discourse that shaped his faith.
The silence of the title is God’s, a most important and difficult theme for a believer. How to explain He doesn’t speak when so much suffering is taking place? Rodrigues raises the question and is distraught by the lack of answers. Yet He can speak; He does it twice, clearly indicating the terrible choice made by the young man was the best thing to do and that, anyway, silence does not mean an absence from life. It is not obvious Rodrigues has found any solace in this; but the audience is left to wonder at the events and make their own judgment.
“Silence” is a quiet movie. Cicadas’ singing is the music opening and ending the film whose soundtrack is low-key. Martin Scorsese has shown in the course of his career a dizzying command of camera work and visual effects, even overreaching his goals sometimes. Some trademark flourishes stick around, but he clearly puts his craft at the service of a well-told story he has been working on for 28 years (based on the eponymous novel by Endô Shûsaku; the Japanese filmmaker Shinoda Masahiro made in 1972 another adaptation).
The long shots on the Japanese coast are breathtaking and the green landscapes Rodrigues crosses look like a gorgeous Eden; and each time, the events turn these vistas into dangerous and deadly places. The first nights in the village welcoming Garupe and Rodrigues are shot in a magnificent chiaroscuro faithfully reflecting the catacomb-like illusion Rodrigues has; remarkably, the same lighting is used for his last night in jail, when he does the opposite of worshiping. Torture and death are graphically shot; the same flair for strong compositions carefully examines the intimacy of the Japanese, be it a small hut or Inoue’s rooms. There is a subtle, smart and poignant sense of contrast as the environment slides from one vision to another, while Rodrigues moves forward in a quest whose meaning slowly eludes him and gets him in the most painful confrontation. The rhythm is slow (the film is 161 minutes long) and follow a carefully constructed screenplay. The intellectual honesty and the real sympathy for the characters are impressive and make it a moving portrait of a believer’s travails. It has few to share with some grand visual performances Scorsese did; but it says a lot on him and on his passion for fragile heroes.