Martin Scorsese’s Silence might prompt an especially weird reaction. This is a film that while it plays isn’t resoundingly entertaining and even frustrating to the point of misfire, but when considering the true intention of the film, and what it means Silence is a film that seems to be lifted to the point of masterpiece probably only hindered by the fact that it was cut down from 195 minutes to 161 minutes. This is a flawed but effectively frustrating masterwork and if that sounds confusing than...go see the movie...I don’t know. That might have to do a little with expectation and reality. The trailers make the movie look like a ruggedly intense film about the persecution of Jesuit priests (Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, and Liam Neeson) in Japan in the 1600’s. The movie, in reality, is a slow burning, emotionally frustrating, contradictory piece of work that goes up to the edge of its convictions, but never truly embraces them. It’s a deeply odd and troubling work that when considered as what it is and who it was made by can’t help but seem more important and intelligent than it possibly is. Silence is bewildering, to say the least. There’s a sense that the movie’s attempting to mess with its audience the whole way through. Cut’s look odd, plot is repeated, the characters never really gel to be satisfying people and the message of the film looks to be contradicted by the end. Yet, when one considers the pedigree involved, you can’t let go of the sense that no matter how jarring everything is intentional. This seems a film that despite its subject matter doesn’t actually take itself too seriously. It’s a film about faith as a construct and the way that sometimes the world simply can’t accept certain faiths. It undermines itself because it is about internal struggle. In that way Silence often plays into an illusive and disorienting tone, that is not entertaining, but represents a vigorous horror in the misuse of faith. In his last movie, The Wolf of Wall Street Scorsese explored the way that our boundless consumerism affected our lives, as well as showing ourselves an exaggerated version of ourselves. Maybe in this day and age, that’s the purpose of Silence as well, mirroring our religious aspirations back at us and allowing us to stare at ourselves from the outside. This is often explored throughout the runtime of Silence, but the best moment comes in one where the ruthless governor of the land tells Father Rodriguez (Andrew Garfield as our protagonist) a fable about a man with four fighting concubines. The concubines fought and caused terror and the man got rid of them and now there was no fighting and terror. That is how Christianity is viewed by this man. Simply, a destructive force that needs to be smitten. If all that can be heard is silence, why all the violence? With how the film continues, the contradictory nature of faith is very much explored with good and bad offered up. In the moment it might all seem disjointed but as a whole, it plays very well. Effectively, there seems to be genius in much of what Silence is telling us about religion now, but it’s hard to tell whether or not there’s intention in Scorsese's and longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker's odder and less fashioned cuts. Scorsese is especially disciplined in his use of film form and while previously mentioned that it must all be intentional, there are moments when the film seems undisciplined, rather than a fully coherent, intended work. This might have to do with length. The film was originally 195 minutes long but has been cut down to 161 minutes. This seems to have forced Scorsese to take some shortcuts involving narration that are just about as effective here as they were in the original cut of Blade Runner (which is to say not very). I wonder if a version of this film will come out in the future that doesn’t include this narration because the film is best when it is silent. There are only a few moments of brutal violence throughout the film, and each is played with a delicate, slow and silent disposition. The silence of the moments and other silences throughout the film give you time to ponder the what Scorsese is truly attempting to show us. If only Andrew Garfield would stop talking over it. Silence could very well be a great film, but I’m not sure yet. It could be intentionally created to disorient. To contradict, or it could simply be bad. I don’t know if we’re ever going to figure that out. Scorsese is presenting a hypothesis on the nature of faith that says, “It might all mean something, it might not,” and while it’s exhausting, I can’t wait to see it again.
2 Comments
2/3/2017 12:17:51 pm
Hey I noticed that on the review for the movie "Silence" you didn't have a rating from 1-10. I find the movie interesting but am always curious on what you rate the movie that you review.
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Stephen Tronicek
2/3/2017 12:38:03 pm
The film was so hard to determine that I didn't leave a rating. Probably at the moment it's an 8-8.5. I need to see it again.
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December 2017
CategoriesAuthorHello welcome to FilmAnalyst. My name is Stephen Tronicek, and I really like movies. This is a way to get my opinions out to people. Thank you for visiting. |