Silence (15)

four stars

Dir: Martin Scorsese

With: Andrew Garfield, Liam Neeson, Adam Driver

Runtime: 161 minutes

IT IS doubtful that anyone other than Martin Scorsese could have succeeded in getting Silence made. Being a close to three hours long tale of Jesuit padres enduring a test of faith in seventeenth century Japan, this is a drama that does not so much scream box office as whisper it from a thousand miles away.

What a difference a director’s name near the title makes, however. The director of Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and the Wolf of Wall Street is the most accessible of auteurs, a creative force as familiar with Kurosawa and Fellini as he is the street talk of Johnny Boy and the fighting style of Jake La Motta.

Who better, then, to take viewers on such a trek into the relatively unknown. All those who enter here will need a stout heart, patience, and a strong constitution to endure the scenes of torture that punctuate the picture like hellish chapter headings.

The story begins in Japan with one such scene. Christianity has been outlawed, and those priests who are left must renounce their faith or face the consequences. It is with relief that we cut to the quiet of a monastery in Portugal where three priests (played by Ciaran Hinds, Andrew Garfield, and Adam Driver) have gathered to discuss the strange case of Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson).

Ferreira is lost - literally and spiritually. No one has heard from him in years and there are rumours that he has apostasised and is living as a native of Japan, complete with a family. Rodrigues and Garrpe (Garfield and Driver) resolve to become “an army of two” to save him. Welcome not so much to Apocalypse Now as Redemption Hereafter.

Theirs is a perilous quest, relying on the kindness of any remaining Christians in the country. Scorsese tracks the brothers in faith as they scuttle from one temporary refuge to another, documenting rather than overly dramatising their plight. Silence is a picture that prefers to take a low-key approach whenever possible, and as the title suggests, it is not over-burdened with dialogue. These are men of few words, unless they are talking about faith.

Along the way, the focus shifts to Garfield and his time in the wilderness questioning his faith. We spend a long period alone with Rodrigues and his thoughts, and at times it feels like it. Frustratingly, however, at the end of this section (indeed, by the picture’s close), we are no closer to understanding this man. Perhaps this is the way the screenplay (by Jay Cocks and Martin Scorsese, based on the novel by Shusaku Endo) tries to convey the endless mystery of faith, why some keep it despite everything, and others do not.

The closest we come to understanding Rodrigues is when he is engaged in argument with a Japanese high official. This display of verbal dexterity takes the breath away far more than the scenes of torture. Though the Japanese guards wheel out ever more inventive ways of breaking the devoted, the punishment scenes become as repetitive as they are harrowing.

But there is much to savour here from Scorsese, particularly his attention to detail when it comes to portraying the country’s ancient culture. There is the way, too, that he widens the scope of the picture to take in the politics of the times, making clear that the desire to spread Christianity was just another way that countries in the west, Spain, Holland, Portugal and England, could get their hooks into a nation and exploit its wealth. Faith, lest we were in any doubt, is never a simple matter of good versus evil.

Scorsese is the dominant force overall, his desire to deliver an epic with shades of Kurosawa only too clear, but he knows when to give his actors the stage. Driver is under-used, ditto Neeson, but Garfield delivers on all that early promise, his performance one of the most remarkable things in a striking picture. One doubts Scorsese will go this way again; but we can be glad he did.

Opens on New Year’s Day