Silence (2016)

  I want to state for the record that I am not anti-religion, nor am I anti-Catholic.  I frequently enjoy Martin Scorsese movies and this would make a good companion piece to The Last Temptation of Christ.  But I cannot ignore the elephant in the room here.

Two Portuguese priests (Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver) are dismayed to hear reports that their mentor (Liam Neeson) has apostatized (that means turned his back on the faith, as opposed to a heretic or non-believer) during a wave of Christian persecution in Japan.  They decide to smuggle themselves into the country and find the truth.

Now.  All systems that exploit workers to benefit a ruling class are bad.  Feudalism exploits peasants and keeps them in poverty with no hope of escape.  But the sheer, bald-faced irony of the Catholics complaining about persecution and torture for their beliefs after the centuries they spent persecuting and torturing others for not believing was a little rich for me.  This is set in 1640.  What was happening in Europe in 1640?  Well, there were about five wars going on, colonization of the Americas was kicking off which included genocide and forced conversion of indigenous tribes, England was gearing up for a full Protestant Revolution with accompanying crackdowns against minority groups like Quakers and Baptists, Galileo was under house arrest for saying the Earth revolved around the Sun, Jews still weren't welcome anywhere, and witch-hunts were commonplace affairs.  The Roman Inquisition lasted until 1848.  Now tell me again how the Japanese were mean to you.

One of the really nice things the movie does is show that you can beat a man, you can break a man, but you can never really know what's in his heart.  There are some beautiful meditations on the nature of faith in the face of trial, sophistry on messages, and of course gorgeous cinematography.  It's currently streaming on Hulu, if that's your bag.