By Richard von Busack
Martin Scorsese’s dream project Silence is done at last, and it’s one large dry hunk of crisis of faith. It’s a less bloody but still torture-wracked remake of The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), complete with the last temptation to a peaceful life. It’s the seemingly longest and most pulse-free of Scorsese’s primarily religious movies, including Kundun (1997) and Last Temptation.
A pair of suitably dogged Jesuits (Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver) are sent from Portugal to find out what became of a long-lost priest (Liam Neeson) sent on a mission years before. The black-robed Europeans discover a Catholic colony in southern Japan in turmoil, being martyred by the score; an inquisitor called Inoue (Issi Ogata) is sending his soldiers after the faithful. When the priests are separated, Father Sebastiao Rodrigues (Garfield) is left in the care of a backsliding guide whose faith can never stand the tests of the persecutors.
Many Catholic kids will have had some fun in their youths wondering how they would deal if pagans tried to make them apostates. Would they spit on the cross and escape at the costs of their immortal souls? Or would they endure their torments like a true Christian martyr? One liked the movie most when it wasn’t focusing on a religious fanatic trying to get God’s signal tuned in, or watching poor Christian peasants fed to the flames or the waves. Ogata runs away with the movie. He’s an old ambler, a smiler and good at cuffing a dumb assistant with his fan. (His overbite matches Scorsese’s—perhaps he’s the director’s surrogate.) You end up on his side. How much patience is an old man supposed to have with a blinkered young fanatic?
