Review of Silence (2016) by Skulb — 31 Jan 2017

This really is quite the visual spectacle from Scorcese. Sadly, the cinematography might be the best part of Silence. The actors do a mostly admirable job with the material at hand mind you, which is not always saying much. There is horror all around, but all of which can end if someone steps on a religious image. And this motif repeats over and over again for the ridiculous two hour and forty minute duration of this slow and unconvincing torment of movie watchers. The dialogue is stiff, being further hampered by the obvious necessity of having actors translate statements between Japanese and English. But worse than that is that for long stretches of the movie absolutely nothing is happening. Perhaps this is the silence of God the movie is referring to, but it ends up as numbingly boring. I don't know if there is an actor alive who could have carried the nothingness of Rodrigues the Jesuit in this movie, but I know that Garfield is not the man for the job. He's good but this is too much for him, or indeed for anyone. Nor does he get any help from Liam Neeson or most of the other participants, least of all his flock of bedraggled Japanese convert peasants. Better is the villain of the story, Inquisitor Inoue. The scenes featuring him and Garfield together are easily the strongest in the movie, and it is a shame that there aren't more of them. Along with his sardonic interpreter, Issei Ogata manages to give an almost memorable performance in this role, even in the midst of Scorcese's tedium dream. Halfway spitting venom and halfway doing a reasonable good cop impersonation he wrestles with the stubbornness of the frightened priest in front of him. It could have been so much more than this though, and in the end stubborn and scared is all Rodrigues appears to be, whether this was intended or not. If one was to be uncharitable to him one might also say that he was self indulgent, but let's leave that out for now.

As for the actual conflict between Buddhist and Christian spirituality, if that really exists, we get precious little. The problem with life, or one of them at any rate, is that occasionally very little happens. And the problem with realistic movies then, which is what this basically is, is that they become undernarrated because the protagonists can only know what they would reasonably know given the circumstances. So rather than exposition of any deep nature, Silence offers uneventful, well, silence, punctuated by sporadic but highly calculated outbursts of violence by the Japanese authorities. And these are not characterized by the hopelessness of the damned one might have preferred for some sorely needed dramatic effect, but rather by the pride of the stubborn priest. And this is all a pity because this particular historical conflict is very interesting. It's just that Silence doesn't really delve into it, even at its amazing running length. It is like a theological Last Samurai that refuses to talk about theology. Oh and with Tom Cruise at a safe distance obviously. Otherwise he would have had to do something heroic or hysterical. Anyway, instead of depth we get semi-heroic attempts by the cast at conveying fervor, which generally only end up in ritualistic behavior, on both sides mind you, with tartish, irrelevant symbolism tacked on top. The cross is important and so are bells in the temple. But Christ and Buddha disappear in the silence together, as if the movie isn't about any of that at all. It is weird in a way that might have been interesting but is not.

It might be worth a watch for the patient or for those with a genuine passion for Scorcese and his films. For those with an interest in Japanese culture, Catholic theology, Buddhist philosophy or the general conflict between east and west in past centuries I would recommend giving it a berth. Not a wide berth mind you. You're not risking worse than two and a half hours of boredom, which might work if you pretend you're back in school where it is your job to be bored stiff. Just make sure you have some coffee at hand. Or maybe some sort of exercise equipment to keep your circulation going. Oh, and just like in school you're highly unlikely to learn anything useful, unless you want to count learning a new way of drowning peasants with bales of hay. If you want to know about spirituality, read some Dostojevski. If you want to be bored to death by Martin Scorcese, watch Silence. They really are two completely different things here, glowing reviews in abundance notwithstanding. There is nothing spiritual about anything that occurs in this movie. It is one half European arrogance and intrusiveness and one half Japanese desire for administrative harmony and avoidance of change. They could swap clothes and the movie would very easily become a tale about tax codes and tariffs instead. And then you'd really be bored because all the hairdos and nightgowns would look exactly as boring as Silence actually is behind its flimsy garb of authenticity.