Silence

The movie Silence was not my favorite. It is a 2016 film directed by Martin Scorsese. It sounds great on paper, but unfortunately it was slow paced, boring, and it glorified Catholicism. For second and third graders, this movie would be inappropriate for several reasons, most notably the scenes involving imprisonment, attempted suicide, murder, and physical abuse. Furthermore, because it is based on a religious pilgrimage, it is frowned upon to include such topics in primary grades. To make the religious aspect worse, the film made it seem like the Catholics were right to invade Japan and spread the disease of Christianity. But besides all the obvious reasons why I would not show this film to my students, I also do not think they would like it. I barely sat through it. I think the topic was what originally interested me, especially from the film’s trailer. It is set in 17th Century Japan, and two Portuguese priests try to locate their mentor who was last seen propagating Christianity. It took over two hours to tell a story I could have told in under one.