Silence – Jack Panyard

Two students’ perspectives on the film: Spoiler Warning: This piece contains plot spoilers for Silence – Jack Panyard

With interest in Christian movies growing and more faith-based films succeeding, one would expect “Silence” to flourish.

The film holds an 84-percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and has received praise from publications such as Rolling Stone and the Los Angeles Times, but “Silence” flopped at the box office and received only one Oscar nomination for best cinematography.

The Hollywood Reporter cited the failure as result of the abundance of adult dramas and limited release of the film during the sluggish box-office month of January.

Deadline.com said the subject material did not have enough appeal and “without any key awards glamour to speak of, neither upscale nor regular moviegoers are apt to show up.”

These are valid reasons the film would tank, but is it enough that the film would fail to this extent?

I’ve heard people blame the Christian moviegoing audience for the underperformance of the film, but that is too broad of an audience to blame for such a colossal failure.

Comparing “Silence” to other Christian films is not a valid comparison.

For example, the film “Woodlawn” is considered a high-budget Christian film with $12 million spent on production and still did not make a profit, with a gross of a little over $14 million, according to IMDb.

That is 30 percent of Silence’s budget.

Beyond this, “Silence” is more of a refined taste for moviegoers.

The 161-minute runtime requires a big commitment from audiences. The film is exhausting and was not aimed at casual theatre public.

The film also is bound to be misinterpreted.

Silence has many complicated themes and complex ideas that challenge religious practice and views of religion.

This is amplified when shown to audiences in Christian-friendly America.

In the film, Garfield’s character, Rodriguez, is captured by the Japanese government.

His captors are trying to get him to apostatize, slowly breaking his will during his confinement in their prison.

Rodriguez’s captors realize he is willing to die for his faith, so they resort to other measures to convert him.

During his imprisonment, Rodriguez sees fellow Christians apostatize, drowned and even decapitated.

It is here he finds his mentor, Father Ferreira, played by Neeson, who has apostatized and is living as a Buddhist.

This leads to the climax, which generates the most controversy in the film.

Rodriguez is forced to watch fellow Christians being brutally tortured and is told if he apostatizes, they will be set free.

It is here that Rodriguez’s will breaks and he denounces his faith.

The film does not end here, as it shows how the rest of Rodriguez’s life in Japan plays out and how Ferreira has maintained his Christianity in secret.

It ends with Rodriguez’s Buddhist cremation, but it shows he maintained Christianity during his life.

This poses many questions to the audience.

It asks what is important in the Christian faith.

It asks what constitutes living for Christ and what is false religion.

What I saw in the film was not necessarily a “Christian” film, but a film needed to be seen by Christians.

It raised hard questions and did not answer all of them.

Not everything wrapped up cleanly, and I greatly appreciated that.

So often faith-based films portray the Christian faith as a joy ride with one or two scenes of doubt.

This is inaccurate.

“Silence” is not afraid to show both the good and the bad, the easy and the hard, and that sets it apart from any other Christian-centric film I’ve seen.

Audiences will not leave the film feeling light and joyful.

Some will be burdened by the questions it poses, but it is such a far-cry from what I’ve come to expect from Christian-driven films and, in a way, it is nice to see not all questions get answered and we need to have faith that God is at work.

The film stirs thoughts and debate.

As the credits rolled I sat silently in my seat for what felt like an eternity before leaving the theatre.

It left me shaken, thinking and conflicted, but in a time of feel-good, squeaky-clean Christian movies, it was a welcome change.