A harrowingly tense and devastating deconstruction of martyrdom and missionary work that questions the benefits of conversion in a state that only leads to suffering. The miserable tone is contrasted with such beautiful stunning lighting and landscape vistas. Excellent performances from Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, and Liam Neeson. The movie has thought provoking themes that question faith vs brutal persecution vs colonialism, and what decisions we make to survive it all. It really sticks with you well after the end credits. Especially with the nuanced portrayal of religious persecution where the torture & murder against one's own people is clearly horrific and evil, but the methods behind it are merely fear from the global European colonial powers trying to carve up the rest of the world and impose their own doctrine by any means necessary. The 3 Portuguese missionary characters may be kindhearted pacifists who genuinely want to spread their faith, but what about their predecessors or institutional colleagues when they first colonized the New World? Or maintained their own purity during the Spanish Inquisition? Their own cowardice to let their followers suffer in a vain attempt to maintain their public image as faithful? Is it worth it? Where do you draw the line? Especially while 2 religious fundamentalist institutions escalate with their brutality to cling to people's faith as if it were a quantifiable resource for power, whether they know it or not. It's a tough watch about the test of faith, but it's such an emotionally powerful film that will stick with you in the years to come.

Filme ruim, o roteiro é fraco, o filme trouxe muitas cenas de dialogo e quase nada de ação e de outro tipo, por praticamente 2 horas e 40 minutos e isso deixou o filme fraco, os personagens são fracos, a história é ruim, e o resto do elenco não ajuda em porra nenhuma, e eu não recomendo esse filme.

Yesterday I saw Scorsese's film Silence and, strange to say, it's very good but should have been shorter. It follows the story of two Jesuit priests who go to Japan to try to find one of their leaders, who suffered the terrible repression of Christians in Japan in the 17th century after a few years of relative peace following the arrival of the missionaries. This is years after the worst massacres of Japanese converts and priests. Those who remain hide in fear. The two priests arrive in a sublime, savage Japan, very sober and miserable. Japanese inquisitors are on the prowl to flush out the Christians, and we follow the two men as they try to revive hope and find their spiritual master. The hero is taken prisoner, and the Japanese try to make him recant his faith, which he eventually does. Sometimes laborious in its narration, or a little long-winded, it explores an often overlooked facet of faith (denial) and the repression of freedom of thought and belief. At times refined and very cruel, the Japanese inquisitors want to both break and absorb these men of faith, who are overflowing with love for these Japanese who risk everything to believe in God. It makes me want to delve into the history of the Church Fathers and Christian philosophy. The ending is terrible, because despite all his repudiations, Father Rodrigues will never stop believing, his Japanese wife didn't know it, and even his master Fereirra will say “our lord”, even though they were acting as religious customs officers for the Japanese. Kichijiro is a very interesting character, who denies his faith 4 times or more (I stopped counting) to save his life. At first we pity him, but through betrayal (Judas, of course, or maybe stone) we come to hate him. But in the end, he represents our weakness, and therefore our humanity. Just as Father Rodrigues identifies with Jesus when he's imprisoned, he eventually gives in to save lives. A fine film, really! Although a little slow, it's worth a (long) detour!

Horrible torture scenes

Historical fiction based a the book of the same name is produced and directed by Martin Scorsese. Scorsese kept to the book and did not deviate too much from the book. It helps us understand what happened to over 400,000 Christians living in one Japanese city over 400 years ago. How Japan resisted and eliminated the infiltration of Christianity and prevented subjugation by the Europeans. The heart wrenching stories of Japnese Chrisitians having to go through the act of fumi-e and survival of the few over the centuries in the underground church is fascinating.

Soporific. I'd recommend this to anyone suffering from insomnia, it will surely put you to sleep. You also can't get past the fact that Spanish missionaries had no right to impose their own imperialist, corrupt and violent religion upon a country thousands of miles away. Look what they did to the indigenous peoples of south and central America.

Scorsese's best movie. An emotionally beautiful film that shows what it's truly like to be a missionary willing to die for your faith. Simply stunning in every way.

Scorsese is a genius. Everything works fine with this.

Must watch. I repeat: must watch

I am not sure how to really score this film. For the entire beginning, I was prepared to give this film one star max! I did not like the characters at all, and I was growing impatient with the entire story. Then the ending... I did not realize how much I let this film play with my emotions. I was so vexed by that ending. Absolutely disturbed watching this ending, even though I didn't like these characters anyhow. So I feel forced to give it a high score, because how many movies can do this to me? I can only give credit to the storytelling, because I was seriously unnerved by what I had watched.

Incredible film. It took me a while to get to this, due to the runtime and the themes - but Scorcese has never disappointed me yet.

In one of the most brutal periods of history, how strong can you hold on to your faith before it kills you?! Two missionaries travel to Japan in searching for their master, only to witness the barbarity of the inquisition against converts of christianity and are forced to reevaluate their own faith in the process. Brutal and emotional, this film doesn't hide the savage nature of that time and the unjust punishments that followed in the footsteps of a new religion!

When a film is based on a true story of someone, you can not twist historic records. This is poor pagan film albeit with good actor performances.

This movie is grotesquely sadistic and has nothing to do with Faith.

Easily one of Scorsese's best movies. He's crafted an examination of faith that never leans on easy answers or empty platitudes, which explains why it was mostly ignored.

One of my favourite scripts, pictures and overall movie of all time. Ascorsese masterpiece and will remain as one of my favourite Andrew Garfield performances I've seen!

I'll be honest that I wouldn't know about this movie without having seen the Star Wars sequels and absolutely fell in love with Adam Driver's performance. He puts his whole heart into his performances. And this movie is absolutely no exception. As for the movie itself, it's not an escape or a comfort. It is absolutely a "thinker" film. But it's on a completely different, elevated level than most of the "thinker" movies out there. It's not a deliberately pretentious, back patting, faux intellectual exercise like other "thinker" films that want you to feel morally superior simply for agreeing with the message of the films. Instead, this movie out for actual blood. It speaks the hard questions. But it doesn't answer them in a way that's emotionally satisfying. You're supposed to sit in your misery and be okay with it, much like how Jesus already said the Christian life would be in the here and now. This movie is a great way of showing how the oppressed will become the oppressor if given the power. Humans don't change. We're so concerned with *feeling* good, we almost deliberately forget to actually BE good. And that's the point this movie is trying to make. We are supposed to reflect God's goodness toward each other. His silence in the face of our failings is supposed to help us understand our misdeeds and work to be better instead of wallowing in our sins

The film was advertised as monumental. The only thing monumental about this film was how bad it was. It was advertised as a Christian film but is one to watch for atheists not Christians. Uninspiring, in fact is inspiration in all the worst ways. DO NOT WATCH THIS FILM, IT IS TRUELY AWFUL. Don't say I didn't warn you!

An excellent portrayal of the strength of the Catholic faith and its Priests. Scorese delivers a tour de force with brilliant atmospherics and amazing performances from the ever reliable Garfield and Driver

I am 3rd generation Japanese and I am also Christian so this movie definitely hit me in a much different way than your typical viewer. Most people would find this movie extremely boring because they cannot relate to this. It's so sad to fathom what Japanese Christians went through during that period of time. Regarding the movie, the first half definitely moved faster than the second half. The second half was mostly talking and torture, and extremely sad and emotional; it depicted how vicious and ruthless Japan religious culture was back then. If you like history or are not an atheist, then this movie could be for you. Scorcese did a fine job however there could have been a better ending.