God in ‘Silence’

BAGUIA

One weekend, some of my colleagues at the University of the Philippines Cebu and I watched Martin Scorsese’s “Silence.” The movie, nominated for achievement in cinematography in this year’s Academy Awards, is based on an eponymous novel by Japanese author Shusako Endo.

Two Portuguese Jesuit missionary priests, Fathers Sebastião Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Francisco Garupe (Adam Driver) leave Macau for Japan in search of a missing mentor rumored to have renounced the Christian faith there.

With the help of a drunken fisherman named Kichijiro (Yosuke Kubozuka), the duo arrive in a Japanese village where Christians covertly practice their outlawed faith.

Shortly after ministering to the sacrament-starved flock, the priestly pair is spotted by scouts under Japanese authorities who try to pressure the villagers to surrender them.

A samurai takes some of the Christians hostage. They are ordered to commit apostasy by stepping on an icon of the Christ.

They refuse.

In punishment for their intransigence, the believers are hung on wooden crosses at the beach as the tide rises. They drown. Their corpses are burned on a pyre, bereft of Christian funeral rites.

The scene brings to mind the martyrdom of a mother and her seven sons in the second book of the Maccabees. “Seven brothers with their mother were arrested and tortured with whips and scourges by the king to force them to eat pork in violation of God’s law.” The sons were all executed. “Last of all, after her sons, the mother was put to death.”

In “Silence,” after secretly witnessing the incineration of their charges, the priests decide to part ways and leave their first village, believing this would take the heat off the remnant congregation.

But they are soon captured. Kichijiro betrays Father Rodrigues. Father Garupe drowns trying to save believers who are bound and thrown into the sea.

Kichijiro is one of the roundabout signposts to God in the film. At one point, he shares his backstory to Father Rodrigues. He was a Christian who trampled an icon to escape torture and execution. His relatives stood firm in the faith and were set on fire as he watched.

The fisher goes through the sacrament of confession through Father Rodrigues who absolves him. Yet he betrays his fellow disciples and denies the faith again and again. The priest Rodrigues nevertheless brings Kichijiro God’s forgiveness each time he confesses. How many times must one forgive? Not seven times, the Galilean Teacher says in the Holy Book, but seventy times seven.

Father Rodrigues meets his mentor, the former Father Cristóvão Ferreira (Liam Neeson) who, after hours of torture, had apostatized, embraced Buddhism and eventually married a Japanese woman. They argue. No one wins the other over.

In prison, Rodrigues hears the wailing of Japanese ex-Christians who continue to be tortured. Ferreira tells Rodrigues that the authorities want him to apostatize that they may be spared.

Rodrigues steps on an icon and follows in the footsteps of Ferreira.

The two work as port inspectors, ensuring that no Christian artifact is smuggled into their island. However, one is later found on Kichijiro who has become Rodrigues’ servant. He is led away.

Rodrigues dies. The final scene sees his corpse in a casket. The camera zooms in on a small cross within his clasped hands.

What happened between Father Rodrigues’ formal apostasy and his death?

Did Rodrigues, after his apostasy, channel Nicodemus who mostly went to see Jesus in the silence of night for fear of the costs of public association with the Nazarene?

Did Rodrigues think of Saint Paul’s words to Saint Timothy?

“If we died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will also disown us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself.”
Scorsese’s Rodrigues’ decisions raise difficult questions. But that he seems to have managed to cling to a crucifix as he breathed his last clearly testifies to the impact of the martyrdom of Father Garupe and the persecuted Japanese Christians, and to the Lord’s mercy.