The main point of the film is not so much a question of faith, but of torture. And it's not just torture, but a question of how to break strong man. Contrary to almost every review I've seen, Rodrigues is not a weak man. Rather, because he is strong, because he is a man of refined tastes, intellectual vigor, a man in love with the world, he has a fatal weakness that the imperial inquisitor exploits perfectly. Silence is truly a story of Judas, and not in the sympathetic way we may expect. Rather, it's an exposition on what the Gospels might have meant when they refer to Satan entering Judas.
Early on, Rodrigues has a typical brashness about him in pursuing a mission to Japan. Most reviews cover this point. But it goes deeper. When Rodrigues and Garupe arrive in Japan their guide, an unsavory apostate Christian Kichijiro, runs off to the village. Neither priest knows what is happening. However, while Garupe prays, Rodrigues begins to say to himself: "What you do, do quickly". This is a quote from John's gospel, what Jesus says to Judas as he leaves the Supper. This statement is key to understanding Rodrigues' character. He is not just hungry for glory, but he believes that he himself is akin to Christ. Throughout the film Christ's words drop effortlessly from his mouth. In another scene he tells the suspicious acting Kichijiro, after having been fed a salty fish, "I thirst". Kichijiro notices that Rodrigues is quoting Jesus and remarks on it, to which Rodrigues has nothing to say. There are countless examples of Rodrigues intentionally trying to copycat Christ as a form of piety.
Now some other reviews point out how Rodrigues models an extreme within Roman Catholic sacerdotal ecclesiology, where the priest acts, and in office is, persona Christi. That's true, but the movie goes deeper than such a parallel. Rodrigues begins to equate himself to Christ. He sees an image of Christ as a reflection of his face. He speaks to God as His Son, who is being abandoned, asking why he must suffer. All of these other reviews highlight this point, but don't frame it fully within the context of the movie. These events happen in conjuncture with Rodrigues' magisterial commands. The inquisition suspects Christians in the village and takes four hostages. They will have to step on the fumie, an image of Christ. When a Christian villager expresses doubt as to whether he should step on the image of Christ, Garupe says don't. Immediately, Rodrigues contradicts him and shouts, "Trample! Trample!". Garupe is taken back and dismayed as Rodrigues continues to advise and council the villagers who listen to him. Rodrigues puts the lives of Christians over fidelity.
Besides this point, Rodrigues also expresses refined cultural sensibilities that help channel his arrogance. Throughout the film, Rodrigues the priest never attempts to learn Japanese. He refers to the villagers in his prayers as living like beasts, but contents himself with the thought that God comes to the beggarly and lowly. Rodrigues is at home in a world where the Jesuit order is strong and luxurious, dwelling in the halls of the Vatican and the court of Braganza. While the film never says what Rodrigues' background is, he does not act as if he is lowborn man. Rather, he, like the apostate Ferreira he meets later, is a man concerned to make the world better and to achieve renown through it. All of these things the Inquisitor picks up on pretty quickly and targets Rodrigues for flipping.
Here a lot of reviewers seem to go astray. They get stuck in Rodrigues' frame of reference, which is all the film gives you after he and Garupe split up. They understand the film through his point of view and miss the bigger picture. After Kichijiro betrays Rodrigues and the inquisitor captures him, they begin a process of psychological molding and torture. It can be easy to miss that the Japanese do nothing to him the entire time, with the exception of handcuffing him and taking him to their compound. The whole film revolves around the Inquisitor warping Rodrigues arrogance, self-importance, and delusions of grandeur against him.
This torture is manifest in the translator the inquisitor supplies. He continues to narrate events that Rodrigues, and the viewer, see. One poignant scene is when he brings Rodrigues to watch Garupe and a bunch of Christians die. He tells Rodrigues that they told Garupe that his brother-priest had apostatized. The translator tells him that the Christians had all already recanted and that they would stop suffering if Garupe recanted. Again and again the translator, Inquisitor Inoue, and, eventually, Feirrera inform Rodrigues that none of the Japanese Christians hold any real belief. Christianity can't develop in Japan. They don't believe in Christ, they only believe in superstitious fetishes and in the priests themselves. They would continue to suffer, not because of their faith, of which they already recanted, but because of Rodrigues. The Japanese torturers set up false dilemmas to afflict Rodrigues with and shift the blame onto him. Even as they were the ones torturing, Rodrigues (and the audience indirectly) is guilty for it. But there's more.. The Inquisitor knows Rodrigues is a proud and vainglorious man, looking to save people. They know he will internalize their arguments and believe that he is not only failing to save, but responsible for the deaths of the Japanese Christians. It's clear that the Inquisitor and his team believe that if they can make Rodrigues disbelieve that the Japanese are in any way Christian, then he will apostatize.
The narration coming from the inquisitor's team is brilliant. There is no reason to suspect any of what they say is true. The Japanese Christians, generally, have a stronger and more direct sense of faith than he does. While Rodrigues shouts about impending death, a Japanese Christian girl informs him that they are not afraid of dying because God will give them "paraiso", a corrupt pronunciation of paradise. Both of these things are crucial, as Rodrigues is someone who wants to live in comfort and who looks down upon the peasants. To anyone who knows the remotest thing about Tokugawa Japan, the Shogunate had no problem killing peasants for reasons of state. Dozens of dead Japanese peasants was an easy price to pay for turning a Jesuit priest into the government's service. There is never a reason to suspect that the Japanese Christians ever betrayed their faith, except in the moment when Rodrigues had told them to. However, from Rodrigues' vantage, these dumb and brutish peasants were keen to do so, while the refined imperial officers were telling the truth. Hardship for Rodrigues only came on his terms, and when he lost control, he became clay in government hands. Even the debates he has with the Inquisitor are means of drawing him into a relationship with a reasonable and articulate opponent. Rodrigues is constantly batted between indulgence and scorn, respect and disdain; he is treated as a worthy opponent and as an idiot. The tactic is to destabilize him, and let his own arrogant aggregation of guilt undo him from the inside out.
The sad thing is that many film critics look at the last scene as definitive proof that Rodrigues, after apostatizing, remained faithful. As he is cremated in Buddhist fashion, the film shows us a little cross in his hand. Early on in the film, one of the Japanese Christians gives the cross to Rodrigues, it was the only piece of adornment that the community could make. However, there's no reason to think that Rodrigues expressed his faith in holding onto it. Rather, what's likely is that his wife, which he inherited after his apostasy and work for the imperial government, placed it in his hands. Again, some might look at her honoring her husband, but there is no sense that she had any affection for him. The scene reflects Rodrigues' ego and the ambiguity of the film's direction: the cross might merely represent the final destruction of Rodrigues, the burning away of the man who thought he was the Christ.
The story of Fr. Rodrigues is a story of a man who thought himself a servant of God and, through his own evil desires and arrogance, became an instrument of the Devil. When Rodrigues finally steps on the fumie, he hears the voice of Christ, which confirms what Rodrigues had wanted to do from the beginning. He merges with his own inner demons and becomes a persecutor of the righteous. He can finally become the hero he has always wanted to be through the negation of the faith he proclaimed. The film is an exploration into two questions that remain unexplained in the Gospels: 1) What does it mean for Satan to enter Judas?; 2) Why was Christ silent before His accusers? Rodrigues is an example of not only a failed missionary, but of how someone bearing the image of an angel of light becomes an instrument of darkness. Rather than the Jesus he wanted to be, he became the wicked disciple who betrayed the Lord of Glory.
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