Cappa Defina Productions, Emmett/Furla/Oasis Films (EFO Films), Fábrica de Cine,
Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, Liam Neeson, Tadanobu Asano, Ciarán Hinds
In the 16th Century Japan had over 300,000 Christians. In a move to ban western ideas from Japan, the Emperor banned the religion and began to persecute not only the priests who served their congregation, but the Japanese Christians as well to drive them out of the country. Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson) was one of the greatest priests in Japan, but he has disappeared and not heard from in many years. Two young Portuguese Priests, Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Garrpe (Adam Driver) beg for the opportunity to go to Japan and determine what could have happened to Ferreira. Reluctantly they are allowed to take with them a drunken Japanese guide who promised to lead them to where Ferreira was last seen. But upon arrival, they find it extremely dangerous and filled with hardships for both them and for their tiny flock. They have to endure much torture and see so much suffering before they are able to learn the truth of their former mentor.
This is a very long and very dark tale with lots of extreme cruelty and lots of gory torture and death. These are Catholic priests and so this is definitely a religious film. These facts will make films like this difficult for some people. But this is a Scorsese film, and a labor of love for him since it took nearly 30 years to bring this to life. The novel is from 1966 so it is an old work, and this was made once before in 1971. This one is very authentic looking, although it was filmed in Taiwan, not in Japan, but the look and feel is very well done. The dark rocky shores lead you to believe you are in Japan This is a long movie, but kept me enthralled throughout. The story was told with such stark realism that you could almost feel the suffering. It was hard not to shed a tear or two during some of the endings. This also a morality play with no black and white, but many, many different shades of gray. Each person has a breaking point and how far can they be pushed before they will have to break. It also shows how extremely hard the Japanese people were. All in all, this is a really amazing story, and a new epic tale worthy of the great biblical films of long ago. This film did not get a lot of traction in the box office, and I think that’s really sad because there is an awful lot to love about this adventure, but I think some built in prejudice against Scorsese himself, along with the religious aspect of it affected a lot of the negative about it. I felt it was extremely well done, but people don’t want to see a movie about the Catholic church unless it’s got an exorcism or two in it, and a monster or two. Sad, because this was a very good film.
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