Silence (2016) – Financial Information". The Numbers. Archived from the original on February 2, 2017 . Retrieved January 21, 2017. The men arrive at the village of Tomogi, where they find the villagers are practicing Christianity in secret. Two men in particular, Mokichi and Ichizo, are respected Christian leaders in the town. The men help situate Rodrigues and Garrpe in a charcoal hut on the hillside, away from the authorities. There, Rodrigues and Garrpe perform mass and hear confessions. Meanwhile, Kichijiro spreads the word to other towns that the priests have arrived, and villagers from other towns come to the priests’ hut. Soon, the government finds out that Christian priests have arrived, and a group of guards come to search the village. The officials demand that the town turn over the priests in three days and in the meantime select three hostages for the guards to take away. Mokichi and Ichizo volunteer, while the village selects Kichijiro as a third. Crestfallen and angry, Kichijiro joins the men in Nagasaki, where they are forced to apostatize at the magistrate’s office. Only Kichijiro apostatizes. Mokichi and Ichizo are returned to Tomogi, where they are subjected to the water torture and left to die. Rodrigues watches the whole affair from his hut, wondering why God is silent in the face of such meaningless suffering. For the first time, Rodrigues questions his faith. Novelist Shusaku Endo sought a Christianity that speaks to the Japanese soul. Professor Emeritus of English Luke Reinsma reflects on Endo's great novel. Wilkinson, Alissa (January 14, 2017). "Silence is beautiful, unsettling and one of the finest religious movies ever made". Vox. Archived from the original on February 8, 2017 . Retrieved March 21, 2017. Weak" people caught up in historically conditioned moral situations in somnambulant societies that are reluctantly waking up to change. I may not share Endo's Catholicism, nor his difficult internal debate with the nature of his faith, but his social and moral vision, and the manner in which he has sought to turn his understanding of inflexible societies and ideologies into literature, has been an important influence upon me.

Tom Brueggemann (January 15, 2017). "Arthouse Audit: Audiences Skip Martin Scorsese's 'Silence' ". IndieWire. Archived from the original on January 17, 2017 . Retrieved January 21, 2017. Despite having apostatized, Rodrigues is forced by shogunate officials to prove that he is not practicing his former religion in secret. Kichijirō is arrested after being caught with a Christian amulet and Rodrigues never sees him again. The former priest lives out the remainder of his life in Japan. After his death, he is given a traditional Japanese funeral. His wife is allowed to place an offering in his hand to ward off evil spirits - she places the tiny crudely made crucifix that was given to him when he first came to Tomogi, indicating that in his heart, Rodrigues remained a Christian all his life. Human suffering extends beyond the truth we know in our minds. While in prison, Rodrigues faces an onslaught of psychological torment. Endo writes,

Summary of Silence

Scorsese considered Silence a "passion project": it had been in development since 1990, two years after the release of his film The Last Temptation of Christ, which also carried strongly religious themes. [26] When asked why he retained interest in the project for over 26 years, Scorsese said: Martin Scorsese Settles 'Silence' Lawsuit, Casts Liam Neeson". IndieWire.com. January 31, 2014. Archived from the original on October 2, 2016 . Retrieved September 30, 2016. Seth Kelley (December 24, 2016). "Box Office: 'Rogue One', 'Sing' Take Top Two Spots on Friday, Others Lag". Variety. Archived from the original on February 2, 2017 . Retrieved January 21, 2017. Montevechio, Cesar (April 1, 2017). "Martin Scorsese's 'Silence' is an anguished masterwork of spiritual inquiry". Journal of Religion & Film. Archived from the original on August 4, 2017 . Retrieved July 31, 2017.

But if Rodrigues is a Christ-figure, Kichijiro is his Judas, betraying him to the shogunal authorities for a handful of coins. When the captured priest is brought down to the sea coast and then taken to Nagasaki, the narrative shifts from first to third person, catching Rodrigues in the crosshairs of the author’s omniscient perspective. Helpless to avert the martyrdom of his fellows, he strains to hear the voice of God, still silent as Japanese Christians are drowned in the leaden-gray, murderous sea. “He had come to this country to lay down his life for other men,” he thinks about himself, “but instead … the Japanese were laying down their lives one by one for him.”

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Ichizo and Omatsu, his older sister, proudly recount how they were able to get everyone to hide their religious articles in time so the guards wouldn’t suspect anything. Rodrigues muses on the peasants’ wisdom in their ability to pretend they are fools in a time of crisis. Still, Rodrigues wonders if there’s an informant among them. Kichijiro, now a celebrity in his village for bringing a priest there, swaggers around town. Rodrigues wonders whether Kichijiro may just be flawed and have a good heart deep down. The Christian faith never did rest easily on Endo’s shoulders. Ever since his baptism at the age of 11 at the behest of his mother, Endo often spoke of a faith as awkward as a forced marriage, as uncomfortable as a Western suit of clothes. “This clothing did not suit me,” he later wrote. “The clothes and my body were not made for each other.” Endo worried that Christianity might well be ill-suited to the temperament of Japanese religious psychology, which he felt demanded a more forgiving and accommodating God than the image of God that was being propagated by the Catholic church. In these circumstances Endo's task became clear to him. He would attempt to retailor Christianity into a suit of clothes that could sit comfortably upon the Japanese body. But, as he was endeavouring to do this, he would also be wrestling the face of Japanese society around and pointing it towards a mirror where it would have no choice but to stare at its own hypocrisies. The most excruciating element of Rodrigues’s anguish lies not in the torture of his Japanese congregation, but rather in his feeling abandoned by God. Over and over he asks the Lord why He does nothing and says nothing in response to the evil persisting in Japan. At one moment of sorrow, he cries out:

James, Daron (December 29, 2016). " 'Silence' Cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto on Shooting Film and Digital for Scorsese". No Film School. Archived from the original on September 7, 2018 . Retrieved September 7, 2018. a b " 'Silence' (2016)". Rotten Tomatoes. Archived from the original on January 20, 2017 . Retrieved July 18, 2021. a b "Day-Lewis in talks for Scorsese's 'Silence' ". Digital Spy. February 2, 2009. Archived from the original on November 1, 2014 . Retrieved March 2, 2014. Having completed the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola for playing a Jesuit in the movie, Andrew Garfield said: "What was really easy was falling in love with this person, was falling in love with Jesus Christ. That was the most surprising thing." [50] Filming [ edit ] Thelma Schoonmaker, a frequent collaborator on Scorsese films for over forty years, was the editor for Silence.Why have you abandoned us so completely?… Even when the people are cast out of their homes have you not given them courage? Have you just remained silent like the darkness that surrounds me? Why? At least tell me why (96). The key to combatting despair in suffering is lamenting. David, Job, Habakkuk, Jeremiah, and Jesus—they all lamented their agony or the agony of others. They took their cries of grief and pain to the Lord, trusting He would hear them. The presence of the Book of Lamentations in the Bible means that grieving with the Lord and asking “why” is okay. Lamentations does not shy away from the rawness of tribulation. In chapter 3, the author begins by mourning that “his hope from the Lord” has perished. He grieves his circumstances and describes his affliction in brutal detail, but then his tone changes. He writes, “I called on your name…you heard my plea.” The passage concludes with the author relinquishing his anger toward his oppressors to God. If we cannot invite God into our grief, if we choose to cut ourselves off from Him—we will fall into despair. Offering up our anger, laments, and questions allows us to draw closer to the Lord by trusting Him with the honest state of our hearts.