In Silence Is Our Strength: Understanding Martin Scorsese’s Spiritual Odyssey [Editorial]

Disclaimer: This is not a regular review. Instead, the herein post is a collection of interpretations and my personal thoughts on the movie.

Ordinary films come and go; that’s why we call them forgettable. Great films stand the test of time, that’s why they are called timeless. Into which of these two categories does Martin Scorsese’s latest movie, Silence (2016), fit in? Various award committees have already made their choice. Now, it’s up to us - the viewers - to break away from the dogma of aesthetics-dictated-by-the-mainstream and discover the true value of a story about two Jesuits making it Big in Japan.

As soon as I saw the first trailer for Silence in November 2016, I got hooked. This was not just a new film from Martin Scorsese, it was based on a novel by the awesome Shusaku Edo, and had an amazing cast (Spider-Man, Kylo Ren, and Qui Gon-Jin in one movie). The trailer left me with an impression that this is going to be Masaki Kobayashi’s Harakiri (1962) meets The Ten Commandments (1956). Needless to say, I couldn’t wait to see Silence on the big screen.

However, it turned out that the film will not hit the Polish screens until after two months after its premiere in America. This was a kind of a disappointment but an expected one from the Polish distributor. Nevertheless, I was determined to wait patiently. In the meantime, I have fallen gravely ill. My condition became quite serious and I had to take a leave of absence from university and undergo a long and exhausting treatment. When I found myself in this difficult in-disposition, I unconsciously began evaluating my life: my successes, my failures, my beliefs, and convictions. I have always regarded myself as an Agnostic Deist and I still do. I won’t force anyone into believing that God indeed exists. It’s just a matter of my own belief system. Thus, I believe in the existence of a higher power out there.

I was too sick to check out Silence when it finally arrived in Polish cinemas. Fortunately, I eventually got round to see the movie when it came out on Blu-ray and... I can only describe it in this way: a complete catharsis.

Evidently, Silence is a movie which focuses on religious issues. Martin Scorsese himself described it as a story about a man who gives up his faith to gain his faith. The plot goes like this: It’s the 17th century, the Tokugawa Shogunate is brutally eradicating Christianity in Japan. Two Jesuit priests, Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Garupe (Adam Driver), secretly travel there so as to find their missing mentor, father Ferreira (Liam Neeson), who is rumoured to have committed apostasy.

Since its cinematic release, there’s been a lot of internet discussion going on the internet with people trying to make out the meaning of Silence. Undoubtedly, it’s a story about religion. The main question posed by the film is: Can people freely practise their own beliefs? That’s the general theme with the Japanese being oppressed by the government, yet there’s so much more than this issue. Silence endows us with problems of personal faith, torture-enforced-apostasy, and shame.

Of all the interpretations out there, two really got my attention: the one by Bishop Barron and Wesley Tomsky. Both extremely insightful and interesting, but tackling the movie entirely from a Catholic perspective. Bishop Barron nails it to the cross when talking about the cultural elite who likes the Christianity to be just about ambiguity, complexity, difficulty, etc, which is the mainstream perspective of Silence: nothing is clear, God is uncertain, Christianity is vague– it’s just a touching story about a priest who is forced to commit apostasy. Then, there’s the Catholic stance: Bishop Barron provides an intriguing example of Jesuits being like Special Ops in the war zone. Would it be okay for soldiers commit betrayal and go over the enemy’s side? Not so much. Wesley Tomsky supports this way of thinking by further analysis of father Rodrigues. The Jesuit supports the sacrilege of Christian iconography so that the Japanese could stay alive. This is what, according to Tomsky, already makes Rodrigues an anti-hero. Father Garupe does not deny his faith at any point and he dies in consequence. Rodrigues, on the other hand, finally gives in because he can’t stand the sufferings of Christian believers anymore.

Thus, the central problem unfolds before us: eternal life vs. earthly life. Which of the two is more important? Father Garupe chose the first, whereas Rodrigues and Ferrera were brought down to their knees and supported the latter. Like I said, Bishop Barron’s Special Ops-parallel is very descriptive, but Rodrigues and Ferrera did what they did to stop the killings of innocent people. Of course, in religious terms, they did not survive the task of God. Instead, they became the government puppets, symbols of propaganda. However, did they really renounce their faith? Ferrera at one point says: “Only our Lord can judge your heart”, whereas Rodrigues holds a tiny crucifix in his hand at the very end of the movie. Yet, in my opinion, the most important scene of the film is towards the end as Kichijiro (Yosuke Kubozuka), the story's Judas, begs already-converted Rodrigues to hear his confessions. It is at that moment when Rodrigues utters: ”It was in the silence that I heard your voice” and shares a religious moment with Kichijiro.

I don’t deny Catholic interpretations of Silence, yet the film is so multidimensional with its story that I think we can step outside the box for a moment. To me, this is a story about staying true to personal convictions. In case of Rodrigues, these were Christian beliefs. I would like to use my own analogy here: You have specific political views and a group of close followers, but there’s a whole society of people with completely different political views and they begin to kill your followers. Would you publicly renounce your views in order to save them?

I titled this post “In Silence is Our Strength”, because that’s how I understand the message of this movie. External forces may smear you, break you, destroy you, but deep deep down your heart, you will never reject what you believe in. That’s why Rodrigues heard the voice of Jesus in silence. To him, silence became the message of God. To others, silence is means of survival in this ideologically-driven world of political correctness, atheism, double standards, and postmodernity.

A fact to conclude: Japanese Christians remained silent for 200 years until they were granted religious freedom after the Meiji Restoration.