CAPSULE: Silence (2016, Dir. Martin Scorsese)

Does anyone need an atheist's view on Martin Scorsese's Silence? And I'll qualify that on matters of atheism, I don't believe in gods spiritual or cinematic. Slavish devotion to deities and to Scorsese leaves me cold.

Silence left me cold. Cold, bored and irritated.

What does an atheist want out of a film about faith? I guess my godless self was hoping for some inkling of the power of belief that could expand my heathen existence into short lived understanding of ecstasy. Or at least a glimpse into the mindset of the faithful. Failing that, some nice mist covered Japanese vistas to back the scenes of inquisitorial persecution by aquatic crucifixion (On balance not worth the effort).

Having endured the film, I can add a few things that I didn't want out of it. Didn't want to see Andrew Garfield chew through an embarrassingly facile screenplay. Didn't want endless scenes of people letting other people die for the sake of not stepping on religious artifacts (and I didn't find the concomitant inner conflict at all compelling). Didn't want to hear the Father, the Son or the Holy Spirit, taking on voiceover duties (Come to that, for a film called Silence there was an inordinate amount of clunky off-screen exposition).

Surely this (and Gangs of New York) is enough to wake some Scorsese acolytes up from their uncritical slumber.

Let it go people.

Apostatise!

★★☆

Trailer: