Time for the first write-up!
Silence
Silence is not for the faint of heart. Marty’s labour of love, decades in the making, is often punishing in its brutal, austere, and disinterested examination of faith but is ultimately rich and rewarding. Rounding out his “trilogy” on religion, Silence was the film that Kundun and Last Temptation of Christ strived to be but never quite was. While the previous entries were great films, Silence is simply staggering in its ability to challenge your faith without ever tipping its hand one way or the other.
While the story would’ve been impactful had the film been nothing more than having Siri read the dialogue, it is elevated by Marty’s masterful direction and the spectacular work of the craftsman behind the scene. Of note is the use of sound, or the, quite apt, lack thereof. The silence draws one inwards at key moments, including at the very end, where one introspects on one’s faith and convictions in tandem with the characters on screen.
But the true heart of the film is the screenplay and the story. Silence’s story transcends not just time, place, and sect, but religion itself. One can easily imagine this film taking place through the eyes of Boccaccio in a plague-ravaged 14th century Florence, of a French Huguenot during the War of the Three Henrys, of a Seminole elder during the Trail of Tears, or even of yourself, today, in your darkest hour. But the film decides that the time and place is 17th century Japan and distinctly Roman Catholic. It begins as Father Rodrigues (Garfield) and Father Garupe (Driver) set sail for Japan with their inebriate guide, Kichijiro (Kubozuka), to find the truth about the fate of their mentor, Father Ferreira (Neeson), who was rumoured to have apostatised amidst the religious persecution.
The star of the show is undoubtedly Father Rodrigues, stunningly portrayed in an Oscar-worthy turn by Andrew Garfield, who’s youthful naivety, ego, and brashness backs him into a corner between conviction and condemnation. Along the way, he is tempted by the ever treacherous yet remorseful Kichijiro (with an Oscar-worthy performance) and the deliciously antagonistic Inoue Masashige (Ogato). The highlight of the film comes as Father Rodrigues, hiding from the Japanese Inquisition, drinks from a stream, sees Jesus’s face (from El Greco’s 16th century Veil of Veronica) in the reflection, and descends into a moment of delirium. And as Father Rodrigues was imprisoned in a Japanese prison camp and forced to bear witness to truly horrendous torture of Japanese Christians. It is in those moments that the film’s central arc of the conflict of faith – the spiritual vs. the individual, the divine vs. the inherent, and the institutional vs. the situational – really takes form. It is an argument worth examining and the question is worth asking: “Who is “God” really?” When we worship, to what extent is our faith individual and universal? When we reach out to God, to what extent is he us and divine? Of course, on this subject and on all subjects, God is deliberately mysterious, inaccessible, and deathly silent.
It is because of its deeply personal question of faith that acts as a character study on God that makes Silence the best picture of the year and one of the best of the decade and of Marty’s career.” – riczhang
“Silence is a film that Martin Scorsese has been moving towards for almost three decades - incidentally, since The Last Temptation of Christ, his previous overtly religious work - and that determination is reflected onscreen in every shot composition and every cut. Almost half a century into his career, the man who once seriously considered priesthood before gradually becoming the world's biggest living filmmaker has made arguably his quietest, least showy film. At the same time, he's not preaching to anyone. This is a movie that gains its power through its seeming contradictions - a story that moves slowly and deliberately but is filled with anxiety and tension, a glorious widescreen epic that limits its view of 17th century Japan to tiny villages and cramped huts, and puts its biggest conflict into the heart of a single person.
It's not often you see a film that uses its actors so well. Andrew Garfield is most in his element playing people who are out of theirs, and so padre Rodrigues is a perfect character for him, a fundamentally decent guy with an inflated ego and much less understanding of the world than he'd want to admit; he might as well kick off his narration with "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be Jesus", and so the journey he subsequently goes on is one during which he's barely ever in control of anything and continually finds himself in the most helpless and pathetic situations. (Scorsese, to his credit, preserves not just the pathos of his predicament but also the strain of dark comedy running through it, which becomes more obvious on repeated viewings). Adam Driver is the chameleon, we're not privy to his thoughts but he commits himself to the character as fully as the character commits himself to his faith. Liam Neeson might have been subverting his wise mentor persona in various ways for a while now, but it's still appropriately effective when he finally reappears here, only to rid Garfield's character of whatever naivete he still has. And ruling over all is Issei Ogata, the actor largely unknown to the (non-Japanese) audience and the character similarly a mystery to Rodrigues, and he's bizarre, occasionally even comical, but he's got the power and so we're all at his mercy.
Almost never breaking the overall solemnity, Scorsese traces Rodrigues' painful journey with a sharp eye and remarkable patience; in Shusaku Endo's 1966 novel, he found a perfect story through which to express his own lifelong struggles with faith. Appropriately enough, the film culminates with an action so unbearable and yet so necessary that it's broken up by editing; it lasts a second, and yet even the camera can't watch what happens without the "blink" of a cut. It's a hell of a climax for a movie that may not have received all the recognition it immediately deserved, but undoubtedly will only grow in stature.” – Jake Gittes
Time for the first write-up! Silence Silence is not for the faint of heart. Marty’s labour of love, decades in the making, is often punishing in its brutal, austere, and disinterested examination of faith but is ultimately rich and rewarding. Rounding out his “trilogy” on religion, Silence was the film that Kundun and Last Temptation of Christ strived to be but never quite was. While the previous entries were great films, Silence is simply staggering in its ability to challenge your faith without ever tipping its hand one way or the other. While the story would’ve been impactful had the film been nothing more than having Siri read the dialogue, it is elevated by Marty’s masterful direction and the spectacular work of the craftsman behind the scene. Of note is the use of sound, or the, quite apt, lack thereof. The silence draws one inwards at key moments, including at the very end, where one introspects on one’s faith and convictions in tandem with the characters on screen. But the true heart of the film is the screenplay and the story. Silence’s story transcends not just time, place, and sect, but religion itself. One can easily imagine this film taking place through the eyes of Boccaccio in a plague-ravaged 14th century Florence, of a French Huguenot during the War of the Three Henrys, of a Seminole elder during the Trail of Tears, or even of yourself, today, in your darkest hour. But the film decides that the time and place is 17th century Japan and distinctly Roman Catholic. It begins as Father Rodrigues (Garfield) and Father Garupe (Driver) set sail for Japan with their inebriate guide, Kichijiro (Kubozuka), to find the truth about the fate of their mentor, Father Ferreira (Neeson), who was rumoured to have apostatised amidst the religious persecution. The star of the show is undoubtedly Father Rodrigues, stunningly portrayed in an Oscar-worthy turn by Andrew Garfield, who’s youthful naivety, ego, and brashness backs him into a corner between conviction and condemnation. Along the way, he is tempted by the ever treacherous yet remorseful Kichijiro (with an Oscar-worthy performance) and the deliciously antagonistic Inoue Masashige (Ogato). The highlight of the film comes as Father Rodrigues, hiding from the Japanese Inquisition, drinks from a stream, sees Jesus’s face (from El Greco’s 16th century Veil of Veronica) in the reflection, and descends into a moment of delirium. And as Father Rodrigues was imprisoned in a Japanese prison camp and forced to bear witness to truly horrendous torture of Japanese Christians. It is in those moments that the film’s central arc of the conflict of faith – the spiritual vs. the individual, the divine vs. the inherent, and the institutional vs. the situational – really takes form. It is an argument worth examining and the question is worth asking: “Who is “God” really?” When we worship, to what extent is our faith individual and universal? When we reach out to God, to what extent is he us and divine? Of course, on this subject and on all subjects, God is deliberately mysterious, inaccessible, and deathly silent. It is because of its deeply personal question of faith that acts as a character study on God that makes Silence the best picture of the year and one of the best of the decade and of Marty’s career.” – riczhang “Silence is a film that Martin Scorsese has been moving towards for almost three decades - incidentally, since The Last Temptation of Christ, his previous overtly religious work - and that determination is reflected onscreen in every shot composition and every cut. Almost half a century into his career, the man who once seriously considered priesthood before gradually becoming the world's biggest living filmmaker has made arguably his quietest, least showy film. At the same time, he's not preaching to anyone. This is a movie that gains its power through its seeming contradictions - a story that moves slowly and deliberately but is filled with anxiety and tension, a glorious widescreen epic that limits its view of 17th century Japan to tiny villages and cramped huts, and puts its biggest conflict into the heart of a single person. It's not often you see a film that uses its actors so well. Andrew Garfield is most in his element playing people who are out of theirs, and so padre Rodrigues is a perfect character for him, a fundamentally decent guy with an inflated ego and much less understanding of the world than he'd want to admit; he might as well kick off his narration with "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be Jesus", and so the journey he subsequently goes on is one during which he's barely ever in control of anything and continually finds himself in the most helpless and pathetic situations. (Scorsese, to his credit, preserves not just the pathos of his predicament but also the strain of dark comedy running through it, which becomes more obvious on repeated viewings). Adam Driver is the chameleon, we're not privy to his thoughts but he commits himself to the character as fully as the character commits himself to his faith. Liam Neeson might have been subverting his wise mentor persona in various ways for a while now, but it's still appropriately effective when he finally reappears here, only to rid Garfield's character of whatever naivete he still has. And ruling over all is Issei Ogata, the actor largely unknown to the (non-Japanese) audience and the character similarly a mystery to Rodrigues, and he's bizarre, occasionally even comical, but he's got the power and so we're all at his mercy. Almost never breaking the overall solemnity, Scorsese traces Rodrigues' painful journey with a sharp eye and remarkable patience; in Shusaku Endo's 1966 novel, he found a perfect story through which to express his own lifelong struggles with faith. Appropriately enough, the film culminates with an action so unbearable and yet so necessary that it's broken up by editing; it lasts a second, and yet even the camera can't watch what happens without the "blink" of a cut. It's a hell of a climax for a movie that may not have received all the recognition it immediately deserved, but undoubtedly will only grow in stature.” – Jake Gittes
