Pajama Guy Gets Results (Finally)

Here's a post from May, 2007:

The headline: "SCORSESE REVEALS CONTROVERSIAL FILM SET IN JAPAN." The film will take place in the 17th century (isn't Hiro stuck there?). According to the piece, it's

about Portuguese Christian missionaries who arrived in Japan in feudal times, [and] has parallels to America's role in Iraq. The Oscar-winning director (The Departed) said [...] "It raises a lot of questions about foreign cultures coming in and imposing their way of thinking on another culture they know nothing about[.]"

I reread the article then reread the headline. What is even slightly controversial about this project? I can see a claim that it's mindless, shallow, obvious and wrongheaded, but as subject matter nothing could be safer.

 

Here it is, almost a decade later, and the movie, Silence, has finally been shot and released. I've seen it and I can say it is not mindless or shallow.  If anyone compares it to the Iraq war, that would be mindless and shallow, but, blessedly, that doesn't seem to be a problem today. (A decade ago, every other movie was supposedly a comment on Iraq.  Years from now, no one will care about that, and we'll see if these films are any good. Most of them aren't.)