The silence of God — is the silence of Christians No other story about the miracles of distant and closed from the whole world Japan has not been so commented on, writes in the seventeenth century Dutch physician, as this story about two Catholic priests apostate. Missionaries from Portugal – Padre Ferreira and Padre Rodriguez – failed to stand the test of faith during the brutal persecution of Christians in Japan and renounced Jesus. And what was it that drew people to comment so much that it made them look precisely towards apostates, and not towards those who accepted a martyr’s death?
The film by Martin Scorsese is the second adaptation or, more accurately, the adaptation of the novel of the same name by Shusaku Endo, in which the director did a really giant work on understanding the very fact of renunciation - and this work is more significant than the work of a Japanese Catholic writer.
There were two of them, Padre Garrpe and Padre Rodriguez. Two disciples of Padre Ferreira in 1640, a year after the official ban of Christianity in Japan, secretly travel to this country to clarify the frightening rumors of Ferreira’s abdication and, if so, to guide him on the path of truth. Secret Christians, a few peasant villages, gladly receive priests, and in Japan begin again to serve Mass – secretly, under the cover of night. But in the conditions of the hunt for Christians throughout the country, this could not last long. Priests are taken into custody, and some Christians are tortured and tortured. Garrpe is thrown into the water after his flock, eventually sharing their respectable fate of the martyrs – but it is only 4 minutes of screen time, unlike most of the film, which tells about Rodriguez before, during and after his abdication.
Rodriguez’s difficult spiritual path is accompanied by his voiceover – a kind of missionary diary, which makes it possible to better understand the main stages in the fall of the priest. The tone of the diary is always emotional and sublime - a missionary often draws parallels between his life and biblical events, putting himself in the shoes of Jesus, the Apostle Peter, or the first Christians in ancient Rome. But the sight of the real suffering of Japanese Christians and the events that for some reason do not find parallels in the Bible, forcing Rodriguez to turn more and more directly to God with the question of why these people should suffer and, most importantly, why He is silent at all events.
In Rodriguez’s central question about God’s silence while his servants are experiencing incredible trials in this earthly hell, Kichijiro is the answer. This is a Japanese man who became a guide for Garrpe and Rodriguez. It turned out that he was once a Christian, but under pain of execution he abdicated. In the film, he will repent and recant several times. This character does not play a significant role in the first film adaptation of Masahiro Synoda, but is very important in the novel, and in Scorsese he generally becomes the key to understanding the film. In the book, he is, according to Rodriguez, “quirky, cunning” and moreover, “lazy coward.” In the film, Rodriguez arrogantly tells himself that Jesus commanded him to preach the gospel and "one like this," in another episode contemptuously calling him the fallen. Inwardly, Rodriguez is always above the flock, not with it, like Garrpe. Curiously, the Japanese translator in the film cites Rodriguez’s arrogance as the inevitable cause of his future abdication, which is not in the book. Indeed, when you find yourself in a non-biblical situation, not finding the right example, and have already put yourself above other sufferers, you begin to feel that your suffering is unique, well, just like the suffering of Jesus. But Jesus heard the Father, and you should not. And in this incorrect, impermissible Gethsemane parallel, you assume that Jesus, with the same silence of the Father, would do his will, not his will. This is how renunciation happens.
Renunciation is painful in Endo, the Synod, and Scorsese. But how strikingly different is the understanding of the state after renunciation in each of them! Synod Ferreira with terrible red eyes and Rodriguez without a single emotion on his face are just spiritual dead. In Endo, by contrast, Rodriguez experiences "unspeakable happiness" immediately after renunciation, and begins to think that he now loves God with a "new" love. Scorsese shows Rodriguez in a state of oblivion. In this state, he looks at his renunciation from the outside, as if he had become a new person. But he sees one who has betrayed his faith, that is, he regards renunciation as a fall. At Endo, Rodriguez rose higher after abdication, while at Scorsese he dropped lower. And when Kichijiro comes to Rodriguez in such new states to repent once again, it has the opposite effect. In the book, Rodriguez, a super-priest with an “other” love for God, “solemnly” absolves Kichijiro’s sins while still placing himself above him. In the film, in this climactic scene, Rodriguez suddenly hears from Kichijiro the word "padre." Can anyone else treat him that way? Kichijiro’s humility strikes Rodriguez like nothing in this country. He sees this as the long-awaited voice of God. He suddenly realizes that his every action or word could be perceived by the voice of God to others. He realized that God had not forgotten him. But there will be no repentance in this film, as in the original. Rodriguez only finds the courage to kneel to the same level as Kichijiro, so he shows that he has heard God and perhaps shows humility.
Scorsese investigated in detail the causes of renunciation, its psychological and spiritual cross section, the psychology of his hero after renunciation. “It was in the silence that I heard Your voice” – “It was in the silence that I heard Your voice.” When the silence came, I heard Your voice. More than 200 years later, when Japanese politics changed, 20,000 people were able to openly profess Christianity. They passed on their faith from generation to generation. To them, listening silently to children, God did not remain silent, but always spoke through their parents and grandparents. And they, in the absence of any other gospel preaching, became the voice of God to their children.
7 out of 10
Original