Spiritual thirdspace and silent faith: reading the parallax between Buddhism and Christianity in the movie <em>Silence</em> (2016)

Abstract

Scorsese’s movie Silence (2016) can be (re)contextualized to state that Jesuit priests Ferreira and Rodrigues found spiritual ‘Thirdspace’ when their missionary work was violently suppressed during Edo Japan. To survive the banal violence, suffering and pain and counter the psychological breakdown incurred by the Buddhist inquisitor, the priests seek an alternative, spiritual assimilation and dissimilation entity that paradoxically juxtaposes with the denouncement of faith (fumi-e) and identifies with God’s silence that preserves it. At this point, a Heideggerian ‘out-of-joint’ situation is experienced, reaching Christianity’s true meaning: God-forsaken man is left to decide in existential freewill how to continue his faith under challenging circumstances. The ‘Thirdspace’ identified here differs from Catholic and Christian beliefs, practices and Buddhist doctrinal rituals and occurs when Rodrigues silently preserves his faith, like his mentor Ferreira. This silent faith becomes the indestructibly true, epistemological element. There is higher semiotic significance when Rodrigues’ suppressed Christian soul symbolically returns through his wife, who places the Cross in his hands, establishing a transcendental connection that traverses both religions’ limits and boundaries. Despite the two religions’ ‘un-meeting’ spiritual contradictions, the wife’s act suggests man’s ability to help each other towards mutual, spiritual destinies. When Europe sees Christianity as a missionary endeavour, and its experience of Japanese cruelty culminates, a ‘shift in perspective against its background’ occurs that never returns gaze; the priests never look back at European origin after their ‘roots were cut’. This transposition of locations that prevents a returning gaze is the parallax that re-establishes true Christian faith in both priests.