Silence (2016) Review
Through a glass darkly
Martin Scorsese’s Silence (2016) begins with the sound of nature echoing out a black screen. Is this silence? But it sounds like something, namely, trembling leaves. There is no absolute silence, only a quietude of human noises. Nature’s still there. There’s always something there. Absolute silence, beyond sheer absence of sound, if one’s willing to go that route, would require stripping reality of all its positive properties: nothingness. It’s neither this nor that – it’s not anything. But it’s an “it”, the necessary remainder. The scholastics called it via negativa – the way to apprehend God is through a series of negations: it’s not material, it does not change, it does not have a beginning, it’s not multiple, and so on. The “silence” at the start of Silence turns out to be music for philosophically trained ears. Is God only metaphorically accessible? If so, it’s quite a demanding metaphor.
Silence is structurally loose, and too long. Scorsese has taken a liking for three-hour films, but, with some rare exceptions (say, David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia), longer films do not make for better ones (Spike Lee’s Malcolm X…). This is a work of courage, though, and it risks everything on a few scenes.
Padre Ferreira (Liam Neeson) is a Jesuit priest entangled in the Japanese repression of Christianity in 17th century Japan. He never came back. Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver play his disciples who want to travel back to Japan and rescue their master – they can’t believe the rumors that he has abandoned his faith and is now living as a Japanese. They should know better what to believe. For a brief moment, the film delves into Joseph Conrad territory, going deeper into the nature of faith and religion, where they come from, how they conquer souls. It ends up in a tale of resistance: how do you keep your innermost beliefs in an alien culture which tortures you into giving up on them? The Jesuit priests resist denying God, much more than Peter, but, in the end, they fail. Business as usual for Christians: they’re not up to their faith. Christ is just too much.
This is a personal film for Scorsese, straightly biographical with crooked lines. The Catholic altar boy who almost became a priest, then turned maverick coked-up film auteur, thriving in decay. He wants to show his own struggle: he subdued to the unrelenting reality of his world but, still, in his deepest private corner – like Garfield’s dead priest inside the coffin – he believes.
What one does in society might not matter all that much if, deep inside, one believes. A rather liberal outlook on religion. But Scorsese is honest enough in showing that such a division between public and private life, world affairs and faith, is not a piece of cake, but the source of doubt and a life-shattering angst. If one’s forced to live a double life, then suffering becomes a constant companion. Only fanatical belief and fearless preaching can promise an end to it, namely, martyrdom.
There are moments of elegiac greatness – crucifixions on the shore – and others which would profit from more subtlety. Stepping on Christ’s image (Fumi-e), which indeed was required of suspected Christians, when put on film seems a rather lazy metaphor to denying God. It’s like overly emphasizing sexual attraction by repeated reverse shots. We get it.
But Scorsese fails with conviction. He even breaks God’s silence, with an eerie voice-over speaking as God, assuring us it’s all right to step on the cross. Again, a rather liberal God. Still, Scorsese throws subtlety away without hesitation, just as he throws away any intention to merely please the audience. He’s better sorry than safe.
