As much as I love Marty, I began to see something is missing in his take on Shūsaku Endō’s novel Chinmoku when I revisited his epic film for the first time since its release in order to write this review.
At first, I thought what was missing from the film was the voice and face of the Japanese. It is easy to understand, analyse and criticise what is missing from Silence through a (neo)orientalism lens. As a story set in 17th-century Japan, Silence’s central character is undoubtedly the young Portuguese Jesuit priest Sebastião Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield). Garfield’s charming face seems to have the ability to cast a spell on both the audience and himself. The likeness between his face and images of Christ leads him to see a vision of Jesus when he is looking at his own reflection. However, it doesn’t require much effort to realise that Buddhism, at the time the dominant religion in Japan, is completely faceless and voiceless in the film. Not only does our protagonist only ever hold an orientalist view towards Buddhism and never try to understand the people who believe in it, but even in a Buddhist temple, monks remain voiceless. In those scenes, only English is spoken and the only thing that matters is Rodrigues’s faith. In fact, most local infidels are only a background for Rodrigues’s inner struggle. They are only the Other to Rodrigues’s Western experience.
However, after reading Chinmoku, I realised that what was missing wasn’t a group of people, but rather one certain person: Kichijiro (Yōsuke Kubozuka). Just like Silence, Chinmoku did not pay much attention to Buddhism. But unlike Silence, Kichijiro bears the central message that Endō wants to discuss. In Silence, Kichijiro’s role is simply being Rodrigues’s Judas. His very existence is to serve Rodrigues’s inner journey. It is Kichijiro’s consistent betrayal and confession that makes Rodrigues compare his own sufferings to those of Jesus. He was reduced to a secondary role in the film. Even the film poster doesn’t feature his face. However, in my understanding of Chinmoku, no one but Kichijiro should be at the centre of the stage. “Where is the place for a weak man in a world like this?” he questions.
In the long history of Christianity, there are numerous priests who are always ready to sacrifice themselves for Jesus and the church. They will be martyrs and the strongest among all Christians. This kind of obsession over sacrificing for the Lord has driven Christianity into a religion of the strong-willed. It might be good news for the church because such spiritual motivation can drive thousands of missionaries to devote their lives to the cause. Yet, through Kichijiro, Endō questions how the weak-willed could survive and remain good Christian during challenging times. Just like Peter, Kichijiro denies Jesus several times. And just like Peter, Kichijiro comes back and asks for forgiveness every time.
In Chinmoku, Kichijiro and Rodrigues form the central relationship of the strong-willed and the weak-willed. And the missing of such a relationship in Silence makes Rodrigues the central character and Kichijiro the Other. Just as the poster shows, Cristóvão Ferreira (Liam Neeson), as someone who came from the West, was a strong-willed priest who went through the same thing as Rodrigues. He is not the Other to Rodrigues. Instead, Kichijiro became Rodrigues’s Judas and the Other to him.
To conclude, due to the Otherness of Kichijiro, Silence missed the most important message in Chinmoku. Despite all the merits Silence managed to achieve, Scorsese made the film Scorsese and replaced its Japanese soul with a Western one.
“Silence Japan Premiere: Kase Ryo, Tsukamoto Shinya, Kubozuka Yosuke, Martin Scorsese, Asano Tadanobu & Komatsu Nana” by Dick Thomas Johnson is licensed under CC BY 2.0.