But that's not how faith works in the real world. God's Not Dead and its ilk are like feature-length echo chambers, only interested in reassuring people "EVERYTHING IS GOOD, YOU ARE GOOD AS LONG AS YOU ARE WHITE AND HETEROSEXUAL". They don't confront the harsher realities of trying to grapple your faith in the midst of horrifying circumstances. What a contrast to The Bible, the very foundation of our entire religion, which is chock full of stories that deal with more violent or dark conflicts to base its own teachings around. I was reminded of the dissonance between the hardships of reality and the tepid nature of these bargain-priced Christian movies during the Coming Attractions section of Silence, which was jam-packed with trailers for poor-looking movies like The Shack, The Resurrection Of Gavin Stone and The Case For Christ. I guess someone in the projection booth just knew Silence dealt with faith in some way and those trailers would be a good fit. That was a poor assumption.
Silence, like the underrated Noah nearly three years ago, takes a far more realistic approach to living by the Gospel and God's teachings in times of austerity. Martin Scorsese has been open about his own personal struggle with his own faith for decades and that inner theological based turmoil very much comes through in every frame of Silence. No one can go through life being a man of faith without having great doubts or engaging in larger questions about their theology. Those sort of difficult to ponder questions that the likes of God's Not Dead completely ignore are foundational themes of Silence, which is adapted from the 1966 Shusaku Endo novel of the same name with outstanding prowess.
In 17th century Japan, the Edo period of this nation is well underway, which made Buddhism the only religion allowed to be practiced within Japan. Those helping to spread the Christian faith were looked at as enemies and countless Christian priests and citizens are tortured and murdered because of their faith. One such individual to undergo this cruel process is Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson), who went to Japan years ago and has been captured by high-ranking forces. Hearing word of the peril Ferreira is in, two priests, Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Garrpe (Adam Driver), have set out on a dangerous mission to reclaim Ferriera. Their rescue mission is wrought with jeopardy from the get-go, with Rodrigues finding his own faith being tested endlessly as he witnesses one brutal event after another in this country.
And boy howdy, are the various trials Rodrigues undergoes in the course of this story difficult to watch. The prolonged wails of the suffering fill the auditorium and the violent torture inflicted on the faithful is out on display from the very first frame of Silence. Scorsese has never been one to shy away from depicting violence as the ending scene of Taxi Driver and many scenes in Goodfellas can attest and Silence uses all of these depictions of grisly behavior to put Rodrigues through the wringer spiritually and physically. Going through and witnessing all this hardship puts the very foundation of Rodrigues faith to the test and the internal places that he goes to on a spiritual level provide the thematic core for Silence. And like the movie itself, Rodrigues journey with his faith is a mighty complex and emotionally gripping one.
Throughout, Rodrigues tries to come to terms with what he's seeing in Japan, atrocities he had only previously heard by way of second-hand rumors now occurring right before his pupils. Seeing the various Christian denizens of this land being tortured by its leaders, he wonders to himself how God could allow this to happen, why would he allow this to happen? From there, the film doesn't give Rodrigues some magical contrivance that makes things better for the people he's seen suffering that restores his faith. Instead, only even more terrifying callous trials await him, which leads him to think of himself as a Messiah figure of sorts solely as a way to cope with the pain he's enduring. After all, if he's a Messiah figure, there must be some greater purpose behind his existence and all the sadistic actions that have been dealt to him. Of course, Rodrigues does need to be reminded that faith is bigger than yourself, it's about how you influence other people with your faith. There's a scene where a captive Rodrigues is at his most forlorn, doubt consuming his faith....and then a fellow Christian prisoner tells him that she doesn't fear death because that brings her to the paradise of the Lord. And there is now hard work in paradise right?
And even after all he's been through, Rodrigues smiles and reaffirms that, yes, there is no hard work in Heaven, it is a place of bliss and harmony. This does not immediately quell all his doubts or misgivings regarding faith for the rest of the movie, far from it. But it is a brief reminder of the power faith can have, how the word of God can bring hope to those in need of it. It will not erase hardship but maybe it can help you cope with that pain, Of course, it's hard to remember that when your actually going through incredible privation, as Rodrigues continues to learn and refusing to give an easy answer (like, say, use that aforementioned chance encounter that reminds one of the power of faith give Rodrigues strength to prevail over anything and everything he encounters) to the multitude of difficult situations Rodrigues finds himself in is why Silence ends up being such a devastatingly true movie about faith. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to learn that screenwriter Martin Scorsese and Jay Cocks are drawing from their own personal experiences with the concept of faith for Silence's script, it's all so truthful and raw in a way that feels like it could only come from undergoing similarly spiritually difficult occurences yourself.
All of that thoughtfulness on a writing level gets accentuated by Andrew Garfield, who delivers a top-caliber performance as Rodrigues. Whatever state of composure Rodrigues finds himself in during this movie, Andrew Garfield manages to express that state in commanding ways. He has a stalwart presence that makes it easy to see why he fits into a faith-based occupation where people would come to him as a guiding voice Similarly, anytime he's suffering, you can feel the weariness the character is undergoing yourself by the way Garfield composes himself on a physical level. He's an actor whose obviously going all the way for his role, but he's not doing it in a showy "Look-At-Me!!!" way like the likes of Jared Leto do, he's simply working at the scripts mercy and taking care into presenting the consequential challenges Rodrigues encounters in the most powerful way possible. Mission accomplished on that front.
On top of all of these weighty themes and excellent performances, Silence also turns out to be a visual feast by way of cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto going for broke on giving the entire movie this visual aesthetic that's best described as majestic in its most grand shots and subtly powerful in its more subdued frames. The visuals speak as mightily on the topic of faith as the scripts introspective contemplation and it all merges together to form something quite power, appropriately difficult to watch and gripping from beginning to end. Take it from a life-long Christian like myself, whose had plenty of times in his life where he carried doubts about his own theology, few movies capture the process of going through a crisis of faith as accurately and effectively as Silence.
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