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SILENCE

SILENCE

A movie by Martin Scorsese

Reviewed by David W. Virtue, DD
www.virtueonline.org
January 17, 2017

SILENCE tells the story of two Catholic missionaries who face the ultimate test of faith when they travel to Japan in search of their missing mentor at a time when Christianity was outlawed and their presence forbidden. The movie records the celebrated director's 28-year journey to bring Shusaku Endo's 1966 acclaimed novel to screen.

Silence is not for the faint-hearted. See this movie only if you have the stomach for violence, torture and the ultimate question: how far would you go before you betrayed your faith.

Not since the Passion of the Christ has there been a movie that touches such a raw nerve where the conjunction of faith, life and death meet. The outcome of the Passion movie was, of course predictable. We know its beginning and how it all ended. Such is not the case with SILENCE.

If you are a secularist, humanist or atheist, you will likely be unaffected by the movie's theme, though the level of torture is gruesome.

If, however, you were raised Catholic, as Martin Scorsese was, this movie will touch you at the very deepest level of your faith. As one reviewer put it, "'Silence' is a monumental work, and a punishing one. It puts you through hell with no promise of enlightenment, only a set of questions..."

The movie is set in medieval Japan and is based on the real history of Japan's Edict of Expulsion of 1614, designed to ban and eradicate Christianity from its islands, a policy pursued mercilessly by the Inquisitor. Into the perilous fray, in 1643, sneak two young Portuguese Jesuit priests who, while trying to aid the renegade faithful along the way, are mainly aiming to track down the eminent Father Cristavao Ferreira, a revered pioneering priest in Japan, who has reportedly renounced his faith and, of late, has gone silent. They refused to believe the rumors that he had apostatized.

The two missionary priests meet with small groups of Japanese Christians who are delighted, though fearful of being caught by the Inquisitor. The priests are finally caught and must now face their time of trial for their faith in the face of torture and death.

The movie explores the endless question of the silence of God in the face of terrifying suffering.

The two priests are separated by their captors, and one is led to meet Fr Ferreira. It is a defining moment for both men. The young priest learns the truth that his mentor had, in fact, turned his back on the Christian Faith and apostatized. It is a defining moment for the young priest. Intense arguments are portrayed. Liam Neeson, who plays the role of Fr. Ferreira, is clearly uncomfortable in this role, but he plays it with equanimity, while the younger priest played by Andrew Garfield, is fully involved, grappling with the problem of evil and the silence of God.

The inquisitor poses the ultimate question to the young priest, and it is not would you die for your faith, clearly the priest would, but would you renounce your faith in order to allow six men and women held upside down in pits, slowly bleeding to death, to live. Such a death could take as long as four days for some of them to die.

Here the tension of the movie reaches a crescendo level. Both the Inquisitor and Ferreira urge the young priest to capitulate...just put your foot on a picture of Christ and the lives of the six slowly being tortured to death would be spared. The priest cannot, will not. His faith is too important, and he is prepared to die for what he believes, but as the inquisitor points out, will you let your fellow converts die for your intransigence and stubbornness?

That is the question the movie poses. A man will die for his faith, a man will even lay down his life for a friend, but what if you hold fast to your faith so tenaciously that is causes others to die. By refusing to recant, these six and perhaps dozens more, will die slow deaths because of his refusal to recant.

In one scene, the other priest, played by Adam Driver, swims to a boat to rescue Japanese converts who are being drowned for their faith, and he drowns in the process. The other priest lives that other converts won't die.

In the end, the priest hearing the cries of the tortured peasants, relents and recants his faith, putting his foot on the face of a portrait of Christ. He lives, the tortured live and the Inquisitor wins. That is the question the movie poses.

He is forced to marry the wife of Fr. Ferreira when he dies. When he himself comes to die, he is given a Buddhist funeral, but the wife slips a small cross into the priest's hands as flames envelop his body.

What is Scorsese saying to us? In death, has the priest repented? We are not told.

This movie is not just for a Catholic audience, it is a question all true Christians must ask and somehow answer.

The question hangs over all our heads. Would we die for our Lord, would we lay down our life for another, and the answer is probably yes, but what if you are called on to renounce your faith that others might live? Not even the Nazis or Communists asked that question; you died for what you believed, as did Bonhoeffer. But SILENCE asks it, and, hauntingly, each person watching must answer it for themselves. What would you do?

END

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