Silence

This review may contain spoilers!

What a waste that 'The Sound Of Silence' by Simon & Garfunkel wasn't even used once! I would give Silence a 3/10.

What I found really interesting about this film was the historical element around this inquisition within Japan against Christianity; as much as the plot has some pitfalls where it triumphs is exposing the dark time of a war against a religion.

Adam Driver, who played Garupe, really captures the accent of his role and the impassioned personality really well; one of the most heartbreaking scenes is watching Driver dive into the sea to save some farmers who are being executed for their faith. Tadanobu Asano, who played the Interpreter, is a really vile and compelling antagonist; the way he constantly tries to manipulate Garfield into breaking and denouncing his faith makes for some very tense scenes. Ciaran Hinds, who played Father Valignano, isn't in the film long but portrays a fine bold leading figure of the church; Hinds is a decisive and solemn man and a good introduction to the church's role within the film. Issei Ogata, who played Inoue, is quite an intimidating character despite appearing so calm and diplomatic for most of the feature; Ogata's exchanges with Garfield are really insightful debates into two opposing worldviews.

However the best performance came from Liam Neeson, who played Ferreira. Whether it be the sorrowful voice-over at the start of the film, coupled alongside Neeson's anguish at the sight of a group of Jesuit priests being tortured makes for a compelling into to the film. It's a shame we don't get to see Neeson for another two hours into the film but when he does reappear he makes one hell of an impact. He seems hollowed out at first, unable to comprehend that he's talking with Garfield. However the further along their conversation gets you feel his unintended cruelty towards Garfield, the complete skepticism around Garfield's faith is another hard blow in a film filled with them. The way Neeson persistently badgers and even mocks Garfield's faith makes him just as antagonistic as Asano and Ogata. I did like the small bit of light still within Neeson shown at the end of the film where we see that he still has faith within God.

This is a film that is constantly at war itself from very early on; struggling to decide how it wants to convey itself and what the message of this feature ultimately is. At times the film feels like it wants to discuss the futility of religion and at other times it's a movie about the strength of faith in the face of adversity. Beyond this the story doesn't seem to know if it's driven by the setting and themes or if it's focusing solely upon a single character as metaphor for the power of faith. Because the script is so sloppy you really disconnect with the action at hand and really only pay attention when a shocking element comes up. One such shocking element is tough to bear: the sudden voice-over from God near the end of the film. The decision to give God a voice in the silence is a poor move, it really takes you out of the film and just feels like a cheap move to advance the plot to some semblance of a conclusion. This is a film that nearly runs for three hours yet over the course of the runtime we're subjected to scenes that run for too long or moments that resemble one another; the pacing has some very real issues and frankly there's potentially an hour's worth of content that could have been completely cut. The style of the film makes Japan look washed out and dull, shots often feel manufactured to the point that pans and zooms draw you out of the moment entirely. The editing is non-existent, the director clearly felt too connected to his darlings to kill them much to the detriment of the film. There is no real score for the film, the ambient noise and silent atmosphere may have been an interesting choice but it only served to drag out the film more.

Andrew Garfield, who played Rodrigues, is just not suited to the protagonist role within this film; not only is his accent work awful but his personality is all over the place resulting in a role who neither feels developed but seems tailor made purely for a few select scenes. Shin'ya Tsukamoto and Yoshi Oida, who played Mokichi and Ichizo respectively, were very much background performers and weren't the right performers to introduce the audience to the underground Christian movement in Japan; their frenzied and life-consuming need for faith felt over the top to say the least. Yosuke Kubozuka, who played Kichijiro, was such a repetitive role with nothing at all to offer this film; Kubozuka only seemed to know how to play his role to extremes and never reached a point where he felt grounded in any way. Bela Baptiste, who played Dieter Albrecht, was a really jarring addition to the film; his conclusionary voice-over came out of nowhere and basically spoiled the tone of the film's ending completely.