Silence, 2016

Feb. 3, 2022 | ALEXA ZUBULAKE

In the film Silence (2016) two Catholic priests go to Japan to find their mentor who was said to have apostatized. Because of the ban on Christianity in Japan, this was very risky, but they chose to do it because they could not believe their mentor would do such a thing. A Japanese man named Kichijiro (Yōsuke Kubozuka) takes the priests to Japan undetected by the government. The priests run into many Christians who practice their beliefs in secret so they are not tortured until they trample on a carving of Christ. The priests bring hope to Christians in Japan until Kichijiro betrays one of the priests and turns him into the Inquisitor who is responsible for torturing Christians. The one priest ends up dying because of his refusal to apostatize, but the other priest is put in a wooden cage and must watch Christians be tortured. The Inquisitor tells the padre that if he apostatizes, the Christians who are being tortured will be saved. After much refusal, he ends up trampling the carving of Christ. From then until he dies, the padre does not speak a word of God, but in his coffin, his wife secretly places a cross in his hand. This shows that the padre had God in his heart and mind until he died although he did not let others know.

This film outlines a religious follower who is struggling with whether to follow God and watch others suffer or go against the word of God but save others. The Divine Authority Theory says that what is right comes from the word of God and there is no discussion about it. This is a very simple theory because God tells people the right thing to do, but there are some cons to using this ethical theory which this film outlines. Silence shows an issue with the Divine Authority Theory which is that believing in God may not be sufficient enough to tell us what to do. God does not give specific moral rules to follow. The padre was faced with the difficult decision to apostatize and save other Christians. If he apostatized, many people would be saved but he would be renouncing his religious beliefs in the process. Some may think that God would want him to save others but some may believe that God would want a priest to stick to his beliefs. There is no concrete answer for what the right thing to do is in a scenario like this with the Divine Authority Theory. This film puts a follower of God in a tough yet interesting position. Should one go against the word of God in order to follow the word of God? Throughout the whole film up until the padre apostatizes, we see him making every decision believing that he is following God, but as people are dying around him he starts to question what the right thing to do is which shows the lack of concrete right and wrong with the Divine Authority Theory. At the end of the film, we see the cross in the fallen priest’s hand which shows the viewer that all along he was a follower of God even when he apostatized, so it seems that following the word of God is not as black and white as the Divine Authority Theory makes it seem especially when put in a difficult position such as the padre’s.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Martin Scorsese’s ‘Silence’ Explores Faith When God Keeps Quiet

“Silence”: The True Story of the Jesuits in Japan: This source explains the history behind the movie, Silence. Before watching this film, I was unaware of the torture that Christians endured in Japan back in the day. Although the movie was based on a fictional novel, some people featured in the movie are based on real people. The movie was very historically accurate in its explanation of Japan in the 1600s. In the 1620s, missionaries were expelled from Japan but some Christians ministered in secret, one of them being Liam Neeson’s character, Ferreira. Ferreira’s character is the reason for the two padres heading to Japan, and his renouncing of his faith was shocking for a Jesuit missionary. Prior to the time that the film took place, the Jesuits brought Christianity to Japan. Christianity was flourishing in Japan in the 1570s-1600s, but in 1614, the dictator Tokugawa Ieyasu forbade Christianity in the country. The carving that Christians were asked to trample to renounce their religion are called fumie, and just like the film, those that refused were tortured. The torture is shown in the film where a small incision was made near the forehead of people so blood dripped out slowly to make the torture last longer was historically accurate. To increase the torture of Christians, Jesuit priests that were found in hiding were tortured to apostatize as well. This film explains the reality of Japan during history accurately while also showing the intense religious struggle that the main character must face.

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