Apostasy is the abandoning or renunciation of a
belief, usually religious. It is the key theme of Martin Scorsese’s magnificent
if flawed Silence, which is set
against the backdrop of the European drive to convert 17th century
Japan to Catholicism.
Japan is persecuting Catholics and the Church is
withdrawing its missionaries. Nonetheless Father Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield)
and Father Garrpe (Adam Driver) are Jesuit priests who beg to be sent into
hostile Japan to find news of their mentor Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson).
Ferriera, it is alleged, has apostatised; that is,
he has renounced his Catholic faith and converted to Buddhism. Rodrigues and
Garrpe cannot believe this of their mentor; if his faith is questioned then so
by extension is theirs. They ask for permission to go into Japan, in secret, to
find Ferriera and, in the process, propagate the faith.
This is a passion project for Scorsese. He has
been trying to film Shusaku Endo’s novel for 30 years and has always been able
to put it off. In some respects, I might argue that the reason for this is that
Scorsese himself is something of an apostate.
His superb early career is benchmarked by a series
of films dealing with sin and redemption; even from his breakthrough movie Mean Streets which was categorised by a
Jesuit friend of the director as ‘too much Good Friday and not enough Easter
Sunday’. This period in his career largely ended with Raging Bull (1980)
although there is the obvious outlier in the shape of The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), which was itself about the
attraction of apostasy. Since then Scorsese’s films have been good but largely
empty; they seemed to be technical exercises in pursuit of an Oscar which
eventually came to him for The Departed
(2006). There is no doubt that few directors have been more deserving of an
Oscar than Scorsese, but it is equally certain that The Departed can’t hold a candle to his earlier, overlooked work.
Now with Silence, which was due to be
his next film after Last Temptation,
Scorsese seems to have rediscovered his faith and with it his passion. For all
of its faults there is no denying that this is a heartfelt film and it is rare
to see a director of Scorsese’s status create such a personal work.
The film begins with an inkling of Ferreira’s
torment as he is forced to watch his fellow priests being scalded to death by
the Japanese. Neeson’s eloquently mute response suggests a man at the end of
his own particular Via Dolorosa, a man on the edge of the abyss. By contrast
Rodrigues and Garrpe are full of certainty and missionary zeal; they are absolute
in the truth of their faith because it has never been tested. Once in Japan
however they are forced to consider their relationship with their faith, with
their devoted flock, and with their God.
Rodrigues constantly asks for signs, as though his
belief must be validated like a store loyalty card. The film’s equating of
Rodrigues with Christ is a little heavy-handed; if there is a comparison to be
made it is surely with the anguished Ferreira rather than the needy Rodrigues.
However, there is little response to Rodrigues’s many moments of Gethsemane; he
is left to confront the silence of God while, at the same time, Scorsese
suggests to the audience, he may actually be encountering the deafness of man.
His new parishioners are being martyred and tortured around him but still they
refuse to give him up, leaving him to look a little callow and undeserving. The
more interesting of the two priests is Garrpe; Rodrigues seems to believe an
accommodation can be reached with the Japanese while Garrpe is much more of a
liberation theologian. Sadly, Garrpe’s character is underexplored leaving us
with a one-note variation on the main theme.
Scorsese’s recent work has been characterised by a
visual brio, as in The Aviator (2004)
or The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), which has disguised the inherent
emptiness of the subject matter. With Silence
he has stripped everything back with near-monastic rigour. The dialogue is dry
and functional, even in those scenes where Rodrigues is being interrogated by a
Japanese overlord and his interpreter – excellent performances by Issei Ogata
and Tadanobu Asano. It is only when Ferriera finally reveals the reasons for
his apostasy and outlines the fundamental futility of their mission that it
bursts into shocking eloquence.
Visually the film is equally spare. There are scenes
here that echo Rosselini or Bresson – Pasolini’s Gospel of Matthew (1964) also came to mind - but for all of its
minimalism there are moments when the film also stands comparison with the work
of another of Scorsese’s heroes, David Lean. Scorsese and his cinematographer
Rodrigo Pieto have taken scenes of the most horrific torture and martyrdom and
infused them with a beauty which is often deeply moving despite the images. I
am thinking especially of the showpiece crucifixion at sea which haunts the
viewer long after the film has gone.
Scorsese has been criticised for ignoring the
Japanese perspective in this film, but I struggle to see what his options might
have been. He is a white, European Catholic in his seventies dealing with a mission
ordered by white European Catholics of his age. It seems to me that he is
entitled to only look at one side of the story providing he does so with
honesty and integrity, which I believe is the case here. He makes the case for
theological imperialism fairly well, I think.
Silence,
as I said, is not perfect. The casting of the bland Andrew Garfield, for one
thing, seems like a misstep to me. But the power of Neeson’s performance and
the questions he raises for an attentive viewer mean that for me Silence is the beginning and not the end
of a conversation.
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