Z głębokości milczę do Ciebie, Boże! "Milczenie" Endō/Scorsese jako traktat teologiczny

Abstract

From the depth i am silent to you, Lord! The Silence by Endō/Scorsese as a theological treatment

The Silence by Endō/Scorsese is a masterpiece, and it is a fundamentally Christian masterpiece. The beatification of Ukon Takayama 7.02.2017 — a samurai, who sacrificed his life to Christ — took place in the moment when the Japanese Catholic Church only half a million people of the 127 million inhabitants is being touched by crisis and attacked. In this social-cultural perspective the film by Scorsese should be placed. The Silence talks about the core of Christianity — it is a meditation on silent God. The main hero of the movie is a young Jesuit searching in Japan that is hostile towards Christianity, his master — the apostate. The whole drama of the action is implicated by the question: Will he — the protagonist — betray his faith or not? And yet Endō’s novel and Scorsese’s movie only seemingly tell the story about Jesuits in Japan of the 17th century. The point is that we are experiencing today the moments of triumph and expansion and tomorrow we may stand in front of the drama of the most tragic choices. If the measure of the size of a film work is its depth of the questions, which bother a spectator after the movie projection, The Silence by Scorsese is the emanation of what is most important in cinema. Scorsese, with admirable theological instinct leads his spectators but only these astute spectators towards the discovery of the axis of the drama. Thus, the spectators for a short while have the chance to look at the wounded creature through the eyes of God. Through the eyes of merciful God who justifies human beings because He sees all these things which are hidden for them. The film bears on itself the weight of a theological treaty.