The dangerous side of religion leads two priests on a journey across the world. Martin Scorsese’s newest feature film tells the story of two Portuguese Christian missionaries Rodrigues and Garupe (Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver) will face the ultimate test of faith when they travel to Japan in search of their missing mentor Ferreira (Liam Neeson), at a time when Christianity was outlawed and their presence forbidden. Soon, the duo find themselves facing violence and persecution against a hostile crowd with their own religious stances. Scorsese not only directs this movie, but also co-writes with Jay Cocks. Silence is rated R for some disturbing violent content and brief adult language.

Silence is perhaps the perfect film for the perfect time in our own society. While modern times can’t even hold up to 1% of the horrors that lie in this picture, our own Christians and religious followers alike are at persecuting times for their beliefs in praying to silence, and it’s in that perspective for what makes Scorsese a genius at telling this story. This isn’t a religious movie that feels manipulative or judgemental to one side or the other of the coin, instead it just paints a twisted portrait of a time when religious will was a dangerous, and sometimes degrading benefactor to some cultures and civilizations. What makes this movie so uncomfortable and at often times haunting is that loss of faith and beliefs for the traumatic road that someone goes through to undo everything that they have known to that point, and the people who believe in them. This is very much a story that cements the theory that once everything else has been weeded out, money, living, hunger, clothing, there’s only faith that remains as the beacon of light to those seeking comfort in change. Their roads are already one of arduous struggle, but Silence proves that it’s everything that you do hear that makes the biggest change in one choice over the other.

For a title as brilliant as this one, there’s three meanings behind the word Silence in itself that corresponds to the story. The first is obvious; Christians are praying to a god who responds in silence. This is a measure of the plot that tests the iron wills of our protagonists on plenty of occasions along the way, and begs the question of how long can one stay strong and firm in their position without an oral answer to show for it. The second is contrasting to the first, and it’s that our characters religious stances are being silenced from infecting those of the Japanese population and culture. Scorsese uses the better part of three hours to hammer home the message of religious teachings and the symbolism literally and figuratively of these two priests being locked away like some dirty secret. In the beginning, it’s by the kind-hearted citizens who seek their teachings, but by the end of the movie, it’s by the authority figures that want them to suffer for the epidemic that they have introduced to their people. The effortless displays of the darkness surrounding the priests in more than one surrounding is certainly always there, most notably with Jesus imagery somewhere in the framing of each beautifully mastered shot that Scorsese crafts. The final signal to the title comes in the theory that the loudest impact comes from the sounds that are magnified around us, and for that we must dig deeper.

Perhaps Scorsese’s most merited artistic touch in this movie is the work between he and sound mixer Greg Crawford. The film has basically no musical submission for its entirety, and this would usually be a huge risk for any movie that depends on the auditory senses to tell the story in more ways than just dialogue. Why it works here is because we as an audience listen and endure each and every single cry of help from the sufferers, and nothing is ever in the distance or muted by its proximity. Because there’s never any music to get in the way or take away from what we’re hearing, Scorsese educates us on devoting 100% percent of this sense to hearing more, and the contrast in creativity made for my XD sitting to be one that peaked on nearly every auditory level that my body could handle. From the opening shot of the movie, we don’t see, and instead only hear the chirping of crickets somewhere around us, giving off an education lesson from Martin that bases the importance of hearing before you can see, or I was once blind but now I can see, as it says in the good book.

What’s truly remarkable about Scorsese is that even at 74 years old he is still evolving as a revolutionary filmmaker, and transcending himself as much more than an American stylist. For the movie, Martin practically washes every lesson from fifty-plus years in the business to craft an original dose of visual pizazz that never fails to pay homage to Japanese style of cinematography. There’s plenty of quick-cuts and edits behind every corner, but the most intriguing aspect of his camera style to me, was borrowing a page from Kung Fu movies to present the quick-pan in all of its gimmick glory. This may sound like I’m poking fun at this decision in artistic integrity, but it’s quite the opposite. I feel like to make a film that takes place in Japan, you better make damn sure that you live up to the traditions and stylings for what goes into their artistic senses, and it proves that Martin isn’t just suspending disbelief for the cast and crew of this particular film, but that too of the audience at home who have now fully engulfed themselves in this epic narrative that looks and feels like something from another time and place of visual delight.

Andrew Garfield is mesmerizing, dazzling us with his most emotionally gripping and haunting performance of the young actor’s career. I have seen Garfield in some solid films before, but until Silence, I never felt like I got a performance to equal those feats. As Rodriguez, Garfield dedicates his body and soul to a performance that showcased him losing forty pounds for the role, giving way to a physical performance that never fails to relate the true suffering of this character. What Rodriguez goes through in this movie isn’t inspiring in the least. It’s a ruthless gut-punch that never relents, and Garfield finally transforms in front of us to the leading man that he was destined to be. His performance is Oscar worthy. Liam Neeson is also great in the movie, despite only appearing for twenty total minutes in the film. As Ferrara, Neeson feels like the equal to what Rodriguez is now going through with this unwelcoming greeting, and through Neeson’s storied eyes, we can conjure that this man has been humbled and defeated in ways that we will only know by seeing what Garfield goes through. What’s interesting about this comparison is that by following Rodriguez throughout the movie, we in turn grasp the kind of tragic feats that Ferrara entailed by the unnerving finale of this movie.

I did have two problems with the movie, and one shouldn’t be a shocker to any fan of Scorsese. If the man does have one weakness, it’s in these near three hour movies that sometimes overstay their welcome in sound pacing. I’m not saying that I was ever bored by Silence, but there is about twenty minutes in here (Particularly in an ending that carries on A little too far) that can easily be shaved off to make this cut something of a masterpiece. Scorsese films like The Wolf of Wall Street or Gangs of New York earned that three hour sampling by producing stories that constantly kept moving without reminding the audience of the rest periods in their scripts. In Silence, these moments happen far too often, and will offer more than one bathroom break to anyone thinking they will miss anything through repetition in structure late in the second act. I also didn’t care much for Rodriguez narrating most of the movie. Once you’ve seen the movie, you’ll understand why this doesn’t make sense from a logic standpoint, but what bothered me more than that is when a movie will do this to review everything in a scene that just happened, and that is what we have here. The film doesn’t have faith in its audience to understand everything that they’ve just seen, and that’s a shame because there was rarely a moment when Silence didn’t have me on the edge of my seat and immersed in what was transpiring.

Sometimes the loudest pitch does come in the form of Silence, and Scorsese’s newest masterpiece is a technical work of wonder even when the obese run time does sometimes slow his momentum. Even said, Martin continues to be the pinnacle of American filmmaking, even when he offers a respectable and impassioned look into foreign cultures. Silence is a reminder about the importances and cautions of faith, and how sometimes our own beliefs can be questioned in an adversity far greater than opposition; ourselves.

8/10