I recently finished watching Martin Scorsese's film Silence.  From both the spiritual and historical perspectives, it's an interesting film. The story is based on a work of Japanese historical fiction that speculates about the lives of Portuguese Jesuit missionaries who have snuck into Japan after its severe crackdown on Christianity and outsiders in the 17 century.  It is brutal in a situational sense.  One character describes the methods of the Samurai lord persecuting him as "almost beautiful", but evil.  The film's major theme relates to faith more than it does to history.  It treats...