Review of Silence (2017) by Asad A — 23 Jan 2017

This review is from the perspective of an atheist. And I don't really write reviews but rather thoughts and reactions to the film . . . . how it affected me. I was influenced by the novel "Shogun" before even walking into the theater. I remember admiring the Japanese attitude towards Europeans in that book: The seemed to know or suspect that letting Christians in was the first step in losing control of their own destiny, their own sovereignty. I don't know if they knew of such outcomes as had befallen countries in South America and Africa where the first pioneers were priests bring in "the Word" (or as Father Rodrigues would say "the Truth",) but what followed were secular capitalists who raped the country of it's resources and their language and culture became the dominant one. All of South America speaks Spanish or Portuguese. Did the Japanese fear this fate? Today many "historians now described missionaries as arrogant and rapacious imperialists. Christianity became not a saving grace but a monolithic and aggressive force that missionaries imposed upon defiant natives. Indeed, missionaries were now understood as important agents in the ever-expanding nation-state, or "ideological shock troops for colonial invasion whose zealotry blinded them."[.

So I wasn't rooting for the Jesuits to succeed. And weren't they a little like the Jehovah's Witnesses that (KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK) keep waking up nurses and other folks that work the night shift? "Can we come inside and pray with you?" So I half saw the Japanese as keeping out the invaders who meant to conquer foreign lands, well-meaning, but naive and ignorant. They were quite cruel at times and they certainly didn't have the enlightenment that our forefathers had regarding freedom to practice any religion. I guess they saw it as kill or be killed. I kept hoping that Father Rodrigues would "come around". But that's because I didn't agree that he was peddling "The Truth." He only had one version. Buddhism is just as valid a theory and provides its believers with the necessary comfort of knowing why we're here. That there are so many religions is proof to me that none are right. But it also proves that Man will invent a religion to explain things and that seems to be his instinct. I loved the scenery by the oceans. What great beauty.