Library Pickups: Silence

It's always interesting to see a sophisticated arthouse film that explores something as mainstream as religion. Movies of that sort like the Seventh Seal, the Tree of Life, and the Passion of Joan of Arc, give audiences a chance to look at faith in a more intellectual subtle way than a more mainstream, touchy-feely film of the same subject subject like The Shack or Miracles From Heaven. It appears it's Martin Scorsese's turn with his film Silence, which is a grueling, striking, and intimate experience that looks at man's struggle to preserve his relationship to God and questions the values of martyrdom.

The true brilliance of Silence is how it lives up to its own title, not only from the apparent silence of God during a time of great persecution among Christians by Buddhist Japanese, but also to the lack of background score, the hypnotically slow pacing, and the stark storytelling. Scorsese understands that an epic, sprawling treatment would be inappropriate in conveying such hopelessness and wisely allows the viewer to see the beauty in such apparent silence. We grow to appreciate the stillness when we see the main characters, priests searching for their spiritual guide, holding on to their faith, allowing it to grow as much as the darkness of their situation does.

Silence is a film that hopefully will gain in popularity among faithful audiences so that they can appreciate a work that takes them out of their comfort zone and makes them see their relationship with a God in a new way, that may also strengthen it.