Cinemablography@gmail.com
Cinemablography
  • Home
  • About
  • Journal
    • Existentialism in Film >
      • The Existential Philosophy of Melancholia
      • The Philosophy of Camus in The Dead Don't Die
      • The Existentialist Subtext of Dear Evan Hansen
      • An Existentialist Reading of "The Turin Horse"
    • A Woman's Perspective: Gender, and Identity in the Romanian New Wave
    • Film Theory Issue 1
    • Film Theory Issue 2
    • Science Fiction
    • Science Fiction Issue 2
    • Pan's Labyrinth
    • Kathryn Bigelow >
      • Opening Scene
      • Supermarket Scene
      • Round Table Discussion
  • Blog
  • Articles by Category
  • Contributors
  • Videographic Essays
  • Our Work
    • Links

A Crisis of Faith: A Review of Silence

10/26/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
Picture
By Emmanuel Gundran

Martin Scorsese, in his newest film
Silence (2016), wrestles with themes of faith in the midst of hardship and feeling abandoned by God. The story follows two Portuguese Jesuit priests, Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Garupe (Adam Driver), who travel to Japan to search for their mentor Ferreira (Liam Neeson). Along their journey, they meet with the Japanese Christians who face persecution under a stubborn, murderous inquisitor (Issei Ogata). While Rodrigues watches as his brothers and sisters in the Lord are murdered, he questions why God would allow God’s children to suffer for their faithfulness.

It is heart-breaking yet so compelling to watch a man like Rodrigues be constantly beaten down, both physically and spiritually, but still continue onward for the people he cares for. At the beginning, he is an idealistic, devout Christian who wants to see the man who mentored him again. Over the course of the film, he is weathered down by persecution to the point of him being ridden with sickness and malnutrition. When he finally meets Ferreira after a long journey into the heart of Japan, he is crushed to find out that his own mentor has literally stepped on the face of Jesus and joined the Buddhist faith, helping to burn Christianity out of Japan.

Picture
The Japanese Inquisition utilizes crucifixion to persecute the Christians
If there are any major flaws the foremost would be its length. The film is over two and a half hours long, and it definitely shows. There are sequences that tend to hold on quiet or serious moments or to focus on scenery. Moments like these do make the film live up to its own title. However, I think that the slower pace of the film helped me get a better sense of the importance of each scene. One of the ways through which the Japanese Inquisition force the Christians to recant their faith is through stepping on an image of Jesus. These scenes slow down to focus on the crucial decision that each Christian must make, whether to deny Jesus or face their deaths. Even Rodrigues must make this choice that will be his ultimate test after all that he had faced to reach Japan. I believe it is appropriate to have these slower moments to let the film’s heavier themes solidify in audiences' minds.
As a Christian myself, I felt that I could resonate with Rodrigues’ own questions of faith. Though many Christians will not have to face the same kind of persecution and doubts as Rodrigues, circumstances in Christians’ lives will force them to think critically about what they believe in. One may not have faced the deaths of their loved one before their eyes, but others may have encountered a belief that was different from their own and caused them to see the world from a different perspective and caused them to question their own worldview. Like Rodrigues, sometimes I am faced with the uncomfortable moments of God’s silence, moments where either God does not give an answer or has an answer that does not satisfy my questioning.
Picture
The image of Jesus on a tile that the Christians are forced to step on if they choose to live.
These are the moments that Martin Scorsese wanted to capture through Silence and cause audiences, especially those who are Christian, to get a grasp on difficult questions that the film brings up on faith and sacrifice.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    July 2013
    June 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.