Martin Scorsese’s new film Silence, like the original Shusaku Endo novel, is a mysterious and complex work of art. It repeatedly catches you off guard – not least in how directly it relates to today's controversy over adultery and Communion. Perhaps this shouldn’t be a surprise, because Silence, like the controversy itself, touches on fundamental questions.
At the centre of the film (spoiler alert) is the temptation to apostasy. Rodrigues, a 17th-century Jesuit missionary to Japan, is captured by the violently anti-Christian authorities. He is told that if he abandons the faith - by trampling on an image of Christ - five Japanese prisoners will be released from their torture chamber. Rodrigues resists, agonises, resists, calls helplessly on God, resists, and then - capitulates. He tramples on his Saviour. The regime gives him a new Japanese name; he marries, and spends the rest of his life doing small jobs for the anti-Christian inquisition.
