I thought Rodrigues was clearly very touched to find those underground christians undergoing horrible persecution and living conditions to preserve their faith. Where he came from, not only was catholicism dominant, but present everywhere: churches, priests, medals, bibles, etc... from the greatest city to the smallest village. When he arrives in Japan, he finds christians who only understand the basic principles of the religion, have no priests to help or guide them, don't even know if there are others around in the region, and are still holding on to their faith in a context of enormous danger.
Basically everything he takes from granted back home isn't there, but these people are still undoubtedly more loyal than most people he knows in Europe. More than touched, he was very humbled, even going as far as saying they had "more faith than any of us".
Just to have an idea, christianity was outlawed and Japan isolated itself around this time, but more than 200 years later (19th century), when it opened up again, europeans went there and were absolutely flabbergasted to find out plenty of christians who had secretly preserved their religion for 2 centuries with no priests, doing everything among themselves.
Of course in times of distress he was turning more and more intensively to God, as many people do, even going a bit mad. The issue of whether it was true faith or pride, loyalty or cruelty to his fellow christians was precisely one of the questions of this film, and part of his internal struggle.
The part I found more unbelievable was precisely how he seemed to completely shut christianity out of his life forever so easily, when it had been his whole essence up to that point.
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TheAnimalMother
7 years ago
I agree with basically all you've said. I must say though that it seemed quite clear that these Japanese held onto their belief in hope of paradise, instead of hell or even nothingness. All in all, the main motivations seemed to be desire for themselves and fear. To me these are not deep aspects of faith in God at all. That's part of the reason I feel the film was so hollow/shallow.
My body's a cage, it's been used and abused...and I...LIKE IT!!
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Pi_7
7 years ago
The promise of eternal life was one of the main reasons for the success of christianity's expansion, even in Roman times, so I do not see the Japanese as being fundamentally different from other converted people. Saying people adhere out of fear of their mortality is something that can be discussed about anyone I'm afraid... but they seemed very sincere, in the sense that even if they somehow made a parallel with their native beliefs (God=the sun, etc), for people that never came into contact with Christianity, worshipping or even respecting a God that incarnated in a humble and poor human, suffered like a human and was completely humiliated and died like a thief is often a very big obstacle. We do not know any different, but it is not so obvious to other peoples - it was a real motive of derision in the early days (see Alexamenos graffito).
I have not read the book but I think Scorsese probably adapted it faithfully which is why I don't really blame the film for the portrayal.
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