I think I must have written this review on mobile, because I didn’t elaborate as much as I would have liked.
I loved this movie, it is beautiful, thought provoking and agonizing. I too, like Tyjenks felt like the movie connected to me on a deeper level than some would Having grown up a Catholic, and attended a Catholic university I have a lot of experience with the faith. (though not Jesuit, but Dominican) I have been lapsed for a long time, but when I was part of that community what I saw was mostly good. Blue state Catholics is a different kind of religion than southern christianity. So I didn’t come into the film with a lot of the experiences that Tyjenks had above. (and I have gleaned from his facebook wall)
What I took away from this movie is not that we shouldn’t have faith. But we should also temper that faith into the reality that we live in. This world isn’t one that needs martyrs anymore, and spreading that sort of zealous religion can do more harm than help. Jesus was the martyr, not you. Do you give up on your faith? No. This was a film about how someone with the most unrelenting faith isn’t broken, but changed.
In this world today it feels like Christianity and many other organized religions have become more about the objects and less about the experience. Who follows whom, who said what, what does the church want me to do, and not what I feel in my heart. Not what I experience in the faith, but what others expect me to experience. This is what the movie is about. When Ferreira tells Rodrigues to apostatize, he says it is what Jesus would do.
The film is cruel, and difficult, but what I took from it is that to put one’s pride or faith above the suffering of other humans, faithful or not, puts you further away from God.