Silence (2016)
Genre: Drama
Certification: 12A
Duration: 161 minutes
Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Adam Driver, Liam Neeson and Andrew Garfield
KRS Releasing Ltd

After 28 years of false starts, director Martin Scorsese has finally brought a passion project about faith and religion to the big screen with Silence.

The film is based on the acclaimed 1966 novel of the same name by late Japanese writer Shusaku Endo, who was a convert to Catholicism.

The drama is about two Portuguese Jesuit missionaries, Sebastião Rodrigues, (Andrew Garfield) and Francisco Garupe (Adam Driver), who travel to Japan in the 17th century to search for their missing mentor, Cristóvão Ferreira, portrayed by Liam Neeson, who is rumoured to have renounced the faith under torture. (At that time, Christianity was outlawed in Japan.)

There, the missionaries face a choice: they can save themselves and Japanese converts from death by crucifixion, burning and drowning if they trample an image of Jesus to show they have renounced their religion.

Neeson said the film is both visually and mentally stimulating.

“I think it’s a beautiful film, it’s incredibly thought-provoking. It’s one of those films you don’t just forget about when you leave the cinema,” he said.

“Whether you’re religious or not it’s very, very questioning,” the actor added.

Scorsese, a staunch Catholic, had been keen to make the film since first reading the book in 1988 after the release of his film The Last Temptation of Christ.

The Italian-American director has said he was struck by the questions the book raises over faith, doubt, weakness and God’s role in the face of human suffering. But getting the screenplay right alone took the Oscar-winning director 15 years, and finding funding proved difficult.

Liam Neeson as Fr Ferreira.Liam Neeson as Fr Ferreira.

In The New York Times Magazine, Paul Elie wrote: “The Catholic film-maker certainly hasn’t stuck to piety in previous projects,”

Movies like Goodfellas and Wolf of Wall Street are almost gratuitously violent and graphic. Scorsese brings the same sensibility to Silence.

Viewers will see the blood trail of a decapitated head as it rolls across soft sand and will hear a woman’s screams as she is burned alive. In the context of the movie is about faith, though, these gory details create a sense of theological seriousness.

Silence is about faith in a world that is broken and appalling, not uplifting and kind.

Driver and Garfield lost about nine kilos for their roles, which Driver said helped put him in the mindset of his weary and frightened young priest. But despite strong reviews and Scorsese’s high profile in Hollywood as the man behind such films as Taxi Driver, Goodfellas and Raging Bull, his latest movie has gained little traction in the current Hollywood awards season.

Silence was snubbed by both the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild last month, receiving no nominations for their 2017 awards. Scorsese will have to wait until January 24 to find out whether the movie is recognised when Oscar nominations are announced.

The drama, shot in Taiwan and playing for an unusually long two hours 45 minutes, opens in Maltese cinemas today.

Ratings
IMDB: 7.7/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 89%
Empire Magazine: 4 stars

The Edge Of Seventeen (2016)
Genre: Comedy-drama
Certification: 15
Duration: 104 minutes
Written and directed by: Kelly Fremon Craig
Starring: Hailee Steinfeld, Haley Lu Richardson, Blake Jenner, Kyra Sedgwick, Woody Harrelson
KRS Releasing Ltd

A precocious, narcissistic high school teen named Nadine (Hailee Steinfeld) is horrified when her best friend (Haley Lu Richardson) starts dating her impossibly perfect brother (Blake Jenner). Soon, she falls into a downward spiral that forces her to reflect on her cruel, self-centred behaviour.

All at once, Nadine feels more alone than ever, until the unexpected friendship of a thoughtful boy (Hayden Szeto) gives her a glimmer of hope that things just might not be so terrible after all. That weird, messy puzzle of trauma and affection where school memories reside is what powers The Edge of Seventeen, a rather excellent new film from writer/ director Kelly Fremon Craig.

I t is a teen movie that picks apartseveral decades’ worth of teen movie clichés, upends them and rearranges them just slightly – enough to still be recognisable. The result is a deceptively funny depiction of teen anxiety and depression.

Ratings
IMDB: 7.9/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 94%
Empire Magazine: 4 stars

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