Scorcese's best in years

Martin Scorcese's fine 2016 film, Silence, may not be for everyone - a historical piece set in 17th-century Japan, with a medley of subtitles, and weighing in at 2 hours 40 minutes - but I found the movie completely engaging start to finish, and real smart, disturbing narrative with haunting cinematography and s subtle, mysterious pseudo-Asiatic score. The story, based on a novel by the Japanese author Endo (which I plan to read) is of 2 20-something Portuguese priests who set off for the then remote and almost other-worldly Japan to check on the state of the few small Christian communities and on the fate of the legendary Portuguese priest who had brought the gospel to Japan and has seemed to disappear. The 2 witness and then endure almost unimaginable hardships and tortures as they conduct clandestine services in several remote villages and approach ever-closer to the seat of government in Nagasaki. The Japanese feudal government repressed the Christian/Catholic communities, seeing an alternate religion as a threat to their oppressive regime; the priests are placed several times in terrible moral positions - asked to renounce their faith or else witness the killing of one or several of their converts. The priests try their best to keep their faith while seeking in vain for some message from their god as to what course they should take - but their god remains ominously silent (hence the title). The movie is in essence a spiritual adventure story, as the priests, together and later separated, endure a series of hardships and dangers; it's also a examination of the nature of faith and morality - very fine, powerful, Scorese's best in years. (Not sure to what extent the movie and Endo's novel are based on fact - most likely not insofar as this is a tale of 2 specific priests, but I think the oppression of the Christian community in medieval Japan was probably factual.)