Silence (1971) ( Chinmoku )

Silence (1971) (DVD) (*)

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Original Title: Chinmoku
Screened, competed or awarded at:
Cannes Film Festival
Other Film Festival Awards

Language Selections:
English ( Subtitles )
Japanese ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )

Product Origin/Format:
United Kingdom ( PAL/Region 2 )

Running Time:
130 min

Aspect Ratio:
Fullscreen

Special Features:
Interactive Menu
Scene Access
Booklet
Remastered

Movie filmed in 1971 and produced in:
Japan ( India, Eastern Asia )

Directed By:
Masahiro Shinoda

Written By:
Shusaku Endo

Actors:
Shima Iwashita ..... Karirô Yakunin
Yoshi Kato
Don Kenny
David Lampson
Mako
Noboru Matsuhashi
Junshi Shimada
Tetsuro Tamba

Synopsis:

The story of two Jesuit priests who, despite risking the death penalty venture into 17th century Japan where a ban against Christianity is severely enforced. They and other Christians are caught and forced into apostasy which takes the form of stepping on holy images. Those who refuse are crucified in the rising sea in the bay. The authorities infer that Christianity can co-exist alongside Buddhism as long as Buddhism remains the official religion and have subverted and co-opted previous missionaries to ensure Christianity fails to take a hold. Eventually even the missionary Rodrigo who appears to have held out against torture the longest - his own, and witnessing that of others - is forced to consider that God is silent and Rodrigo has to compromise his faith. Based on the novel by Shusaku Endo.

Adapted from the renowned novel by Shusaku Endo, Masahiro Shinoda's 1971 film Silence (Chinmoku, co-written with Endo) explores the violent cultural conflict amid the arrival of Jesuit missionaries in seventeenth-century Japan. Shinoda's excellent direction coupled with a pensive score by the legendary Toru Takemitsu gives cinematic expression to inner spiritual paradox, and imbues with religious mystery a landscape that seems already sentient with wind, rain, and light. Two Portuguese priests disembark upon an anonymous Japanese shore. Under cover of nightfall, they seek to infiltrate those Christian sects driven underground by a ruthless magistracy, and re-establish the foothold of the Church on the isolated island-nation. Soon, however, the priests find themselves drawn into the mire of persecution, and gradually learn the truth behind the ominous disappearance of another Catholic missionary decades earlier... By way of a heavily made-up and polyglot Tetsuro Tanba (Assassination, Kwaidan, Samurai Spy), Silence builds toward a revelation that approaches the impact of Colonel Kurtz's entrance in Conrad's Heart of Darkness (or Marlon Brando's take on Kurtz in Coppola's Apocalypse Now). Rendered in a tender colour palette courtesy of master cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa (Rashomon, Yojimbo, Ugetsu monogatari), Silence unearths lies and beauty at the intersection of religion and Japanese society. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present for the first time on DVD in the UK Masahiro Shinoda's Silence based upon the same novel that has intrigued American filmmaker Martin Scorsese for decades, and spurred his own work on a film adaptation of the source material. Special Features are a Newly restored high-definition Toho transfer, New and improved optional English subtitles, Full-colour PDF facsimiles of two historical texts long out-of-print: --- A History of the Missions in Japan and Paraguay by Cecilia Mary Caddell (314 pages, c. 1856) --- Japan's Martyr Church by Sister Mary Bernard (130 pages, c. 1926), A 20-page booklet containing a new essay by writer Doug Cummings, and more...

Chinmoku or Silence is a story about the suppression of Christianity in Japan, as seen from the point of view of a fugitive priest. The film is critical of both Christianity's expansionism and Japanese society at the time. When the priest is finally captured, he is disturbed at seeing many of his parishioners tortured. After being tortured himself, he publicly renounces his faith.

This product was added to our catalog on Saturday 04 April, 2009.

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