‘Silence’ (2016) Review: Part 1 - Torture & Doubt
The Portuguese introduced Christianity to Japan in 1549, when Francis Xavier (a founder of the Jesuit order) arrived and began to preach and organize. The religion experienced a healthy rate of growth, fed by European trade and the political efforts of the Portuguese and the Dutch and, perhaps, by the spiritual hunger of a people living under a rigid social hierarchy and a well established animist species of Buddhism. At its height Christianity claimed some 300,000 followers in Japan.
The growth of the faith doesn’t seem to have been too disturbing for the Buddhist status quo (unlike, for example, the probable reaction to mass conversions in a Muslim country). However, there were geopolitical considerations. Daimyos (local political and military leaders, loosely organized under the Shogunate in a feudal arrangement) began to convert to Christianity and gained favored access to saltpeter and weapons and navigational technology. There were rumors of subjects being compelled to convert after the example of their lords, and destruction of Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples often accompanied the explosive local growth of Christianity. In 1637 a group of regional Christian lords rebelled against the central government’s heavy new tax burden and increasing restrictions against expressions of the Christian faith in the Shimabara Rebellion. The rebels were eventually isolated in an island fortress and beseiged. They surrendered after months and 37,000 were promptly executed (most beheaded). The era of Christian missionary work in Japan was over.
It is in the years after Shimabara that Silence (a novel by Japanese Christian Shusako Endo, adapted into a 2016 film by Martin Scorsese) begins. I will focus on the film because I found it uniquely compelling and I believe that it is Scorcese’s greatest cinematic work (although I haven’t yet seen Killers of the Flower Moon I doubt it rivals Silence).
[Plot]
The film begins with a voiceover: Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson) is reciting a letter to Alessandro Valignano (Ciarán Hinds), a priest living in Macao and perhaps the most powerful church official in all of East Asia (note: many of the characters in the film and book were real individuals: Ferreira, Valignano, Cabral…). As he reads we move through swirling murk and see a company of samurai, pushing friars along. Father Ferreira watches helplessly as they are bound to crosses, hastily erected next to hot springs, and tortured.
I never knew Japan when it was a country of light. But I have never known it to be as dark as it is now. All our progress has ended in new persecution, new repression, new suffering. The governor of Nagasaki first hoped to destroy our Christian faith with ridicule, and by example. But when the faithful resisted, and refused to renounce God, he became more cruel. He took four friars and one of our own Society to Unzen. There are hot springs there. The Japanese call them 'hells,' partly I think in mockery, and partly, I must tell you, in truth. The officials told the faithful to abandon God and the gospel of His love. But they not only refused to apostatize. They asked to be tortured, so they could demonstrate the strength of their faith and the presence of God within them. They used ladles filled with holes so the drops would come out slowly, and the pain would be prolonged. Each small splash of the water was like a burning coal. Some remained on the mountain for 33 days. The story of their courage has become almost legend. They give hope to those of us who remain here, against the shogun’s order, to teach the faith. We only grow stronger, in His love. We will not abandon our Japanese Christians.
-Fr. Cristavao Ferreira
Father Cristavao Ferreira, overcome with grief, at Untzen
We learn from Father Valignano that this letter was the last her received… and that Ferreira publicly renounced his faith and now lives in Nagasaki “as a Japanese”, with a Japanese wife. The two young priests he’s speaking to cannot believe this. Ferreira was their confessor and mentor. They are fervent in their desire to travel to Japan and try to reclaim Ferreira… or at least to disconfirm what they suspect is mere slander. Valignano tries to dissuade them but reluctantly agrees to permit their journey, saying, “the moment you step foot into that country you are in high danger.”
The two priests (both Jesuits, Father Rodrigues-played by Andrew Garfield-and Father Guerpe-played by Adam Driver) arrange a boat from Macao and encounter their first Japanese men: a drunkard and a wastrel named Kijichiro. They suspect that he was or is a Christian since he knows Portuguese, but he strenuously denies it. Nevertheless, he wants to accompany them and return to Japan. More on Kijichiro shortly.
We realize the insane futility of their mission as their chartered dhow approaches the darkened, mountainous skyline of Japan in the deep twilight. There are no lights visible on shore but this seems just as well. Two men, neither of whom speak much Japanese, are landing scores of miles away from Nagasaki, knowing no one and accompanied only by an erratic and wholly unreliable alcoholic. The film assumes an eerie-even eldritch-tone at this point. They wade to shore and Kijichiro promptly runs away. They walk across the rocky shore and into a yawning cave and are promptly seized by terror. Unable to think what to do, they begin to pray.
Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your perspective) they immediately encounter a local village elder, a Christian known as the ‘Jisama’ (Jisam)-a likeable and brave man who commands the loyalty of his entire farming village. For the next 30 minutes of the film the priests minister to the adoring residents of the village (Tomogi) and are awed by the simple faith of these farmers… although it quickly becomes apparent that there are many points of misunderstanding and confusion, both by the priests as they hear confessions, and by the villagers as they struggle to understand their religion without an institutional church or written scripture. The priests are unable to find any certain word of Ferreira, although they encounter an old man in Goto (Kijichiro’s home village, we come to learn) who saw him many years ago in Nagasaki.
Eventually, the local authorities act upon rumors or informants and demand hostages from the village. The villagers have spoken with fear of the Grand Inquisitor, a Nagasaki magistrate who oversees the persecution of Christians (and, in the book, is intriguingly said to be a former Christian himself) but it isn’t clear where he might be during these encounters. The authorities use a ‘fumie’ to try to ferret out Christian loyalty, an image of Christ imprinted onto a metal plate, upon which the suspects are commanded to step. The four hostages all do as they’re told, loudly proclaiming their Buddhist loyalties, but the samurai are not convinced. They command each of the hostages to spit on a crucifix. Kijichiro (the first of the hostages) does so, and is promptly released… but the other three villagers (all Tomogi men, including the Jisam) cannot do it. They are labelled as Christians and tied to crosses anchored offshore in view of Tomogi. As the waves come in their salt-chapped and sunburnt bodies are slowly submerged. They die, one by one, the last surviving man singing a hymn, and are burned on seaside pyres to prevent the villagers giving them a Christian burial or venerating their remains.
‘Silence’ is a brilliant film because it creates emotive and deeply compelling situations. It introduces characters and leads us to admire and love them (even, as we’ll see, Kijichiro) and then submits them to the ultimate physical and spiritual tests. There are no passages through these tests. If they obey their instinct for self-preservation they live on with trauma and shame, their connection to their God and their community hopelessly interrupted. If they display courage and martyr themselves they are gruesomely killed.
Reflection #1:
Prayer is constantly referenced and relied upon by the characters in this story. I understand prayer as an attempt to make a connection with God and was taught that prayer cannot be a request for benefit or consideration. Prayer should be directed to asking that God’s will be done (which strikes me as superfluous) and that the praying person should be given acceptance (which is not). The idea that prayer is a resource to rely upon in times of danger or weakness, or that it can tilt the scales of worldly circumstances in your favor, strikes me as profoundly wrong. I’m not a Biblical scholar so I cannot say whether my impression is scripturally valid within the context of the Christian tradition or not. I understand that many Christians pray for safety and happiness and wealth but those are not the purposes of prayer which I have been taught.
Reflection #2:
Christians tend to believe that belief is supremely important. Many sects hold that belief in God and in the divinity of Christ is the primary or even sole factor in determining the fate of the soul after death. Perhaps this is true but I do not think that it is Biblically established. John 14:6 reads “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” but this passage (and similar ones) can be understood in multiple ways. It strikes me that if the sacrifice of Christ was the most important event in the running story of humanity’s relationship with the divine the perhaps belief is not so important. If Christ was truly born into this world to share men’s pain and assume the burden of humanity’s sinful nature and be our sacrificial lamb then this sacrifice is made for ALL humanity. Again and again, in the Bible, God shows a very low degree of confidence in the human capacity for faith or courage. It seems as though many of the stories follow this format: God needs a human (or a group) to execute his plan. He selects some chronic underperformer: an outcast or a foreign murderer or a shepherd (the retail employee of the Bronze Age) or a poor public speaker or a rural carpenter. If a military force is required, he selects a company-size formation (300 men) rather than the thousands available. The selected instrument is naturally full of doubt and repeatedly asks for assurances and signs, which God patiently furnishes to him. The apostles were infamously, tiresomely, full of doubt and confusion. One wonders, as one reads the Gospel, whether they ever really understood Jesus’ message, and whether they believed. Given God’s established familiarity with the faithless and fickle nature of humanity it seems curious to me that he would make belief (in one credo out of hundreds, mostly dependent on the accident of one’s birth place and time rather than any innate wisdom) the primary factor in salvation.
Christianity needed to emphasize belief (and orthodox belief at that) and the establishment of a power apparatus to become a major world religion. I believe that the message of the Gospel (as I read it) is that Christianity was never supposed to be a world religion. The message of Christianity cannot co-exist with kings and armies and governments; it is immediately and ruthlessly polluted in those conditions. Jesus was a humble man who surrounded himself with humble people and was completely unconcerned with securing property or institutionalizing his message or winning the favor of rulers. Every hint of power or religious legitimacy that he encountered was treated with a worrisome (for the apostles) nonchalance. He never recognized ANY worldly authority as relative to his mission. Nevertheless, Christianity in the centuries after the death of Christ became an empire and a massive status hierarchy.
The implicit and explicit message of Christianity is ALWAYS that power and money and worldly status are irrelevant in the final analysis. The apostle Paul travelled THOUSANDS of miles to spread Christianity but more or less wandered as he felt called by God. There was no rational reason to journey to Phillippi… yet he was led there and henceforth founded his most loyal and constant church. While struggling for influence with the Corinthian ‘super-apostles’ he didn’t emphasize his charisma or his influence or his magnetism (which were not outstanding, according to the New Testament). In 2 Corinthians, he writes:
I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?
He emphasizes his sacrifices and his pain, not his grandeur or his success. Christianity has historically vacillated between two poles: the ascetic tradition of worldly humility… and the possibilities of mass conversion and political access and wealthy churches. If belief is to have any value within the Christian tradition it must be an inherent value, not a heavenly bonus after death or a worldly contest to expand the reach of the organized church. Just as wisdom and compassion yield benefits in this life (if not in pay or status then in serenity and self-knowledge), faith in Christianity must lead the believers toward self-knowledge and spiritual maturity and the wisdom of universal compassion… otherwise belief in the ‘correct’ religion avails one nothing. Again and again Christ emphasizes the virtue of personal humility. He never seems to regard non-Jews (unbelievers) or sinners as less than. Why should we?
I mention that personal opinion because it seems relevant to the story of Silence. It is little explained in the book or the film, but the Japanese authorities were primarily afraid of the growing influence of European priests and traders within their country as the religion grew. Buddhism is often fairly ambivalent about national proselytizing and the historical indications we have hint that the Japanese responded with such brutality to deter European Christians from coming to their lands and, perhaps, eroding their own power, or taking Japan over altogether. When we scan the histories of China and the Philippines and Hawaii we cannot dismiss their fears.
[Part 2] - Where is the Place for a Weak Man, in a World Like This?
[Part 3] - Apostasy & Faith
…coming soon.