Review of Silence (2017) by Hunter R — 12 Jan 2017

The title of this film should be changed to "Torture." Not because of what the antagonists of the film do to the priests and the civilians, but because of the agony it puts you through for nearly three hours.

The film starts out somewhat strong but quickly comes to a screeching halt once the duo arrives in Japan. For the next two hours of your life you will be dragged around with Andrew Garfield to talk to crazed villagers who believe in God, but can't tell anyone.

Garfield's character prays with them and rambles on about Christian drivel for most of the running time of the movie. Overall the film offers no interesting dialogue about Christianity and it's relationship to other religions/secularism besides "shut up because Japan is a swamp where the seeds of religion can't be planted.

" There are many other films that introduce existential and spiritual questions, such as Prometheus or Life of Pi, much better than this film could ever dream of. However, I feel it crutches itself from the outset by discussing a single issue (and one that isn't interesting) from one point of view in order to make a propaganda piece no better than God's Not Dead.

The film struggles to put together a coherent conclusion by turning into a historical retelling of the events in the last twenty minutes. It tries so hard to make you feel like what you're watching is tantamount to the struggle of Jesus Christ himself by making Garfield look just like the fictional character and showing villagers being decapitated.

I don't see how anyone could take away a single argument from such a messy and convoluted story about two missionaries who are just as culpable of forcing there beliefs on others as the antagonists.

And no the cinematography does not make up for the awful plot.