Movie Review: Silence (English)

What is faith? Is it a foundation for who we are? Is it a test of our beliefs? Or is it sacrifice? When we worship Him, the superior being above us all, what is it that we are actually seeking? Is it a solution to our problems? Or is it a hope for a better life? And when we give up our religious beliefs for another, what does it actually mean? That we are dissatisfied? Or is it that the God we have been worshipping thus far has turned silent, gone deaf and mute to our trials and tribulations? Or could it be something else? Silence, Martin Scorsese's latest directorial based on the 1966 Japanese novel written by Shusaku Endo about the persecution of jesuit priests for spreading their faith in 17th century Japan, the time during which Christianity was outlawed, is about these inner conflicts. In fact it's so silent a film it lets chirping crickets, burning wood and cries of agony and suffering substitute the musical score.

This is at times gruesome and uncomfortably stifling (to be a mute observer, that is), perhaps clinical and distant even, but it's remarkably poignant and thought-provoking, with Scorsese never for once colouring the narrative with his own interpretation of the events. The most profound moment occurs when a jesuit evangelist (played by Andrew Garfield called Father Sebastião Rodrigues) is put through psychological torture by forcing him to watch fellow Japanese Christians suffer and is eventually made to question his own beliefs (how can the benevolent God allow such an atrocity?) and wonder whether the people who have converted to Christianity even know what they are worshipping. "Mountains and rivers can be moved. But man's nature cannot be moved," says a character, quoting a Japanese proverb, as if echoing these very thoughts. With a runtime of 161 minutes, Silence can seem overly long, yet it's one definitely worth pondering. I have been, at least.