Silence (2016) and Christianity for the sake of Christianity

The literal meaning of 'silence' in Martin Scorcese's 2016 film is easy to understand and straight forward, but the spiritual silence Rodrigues and Garupe go through is puzzling, yet incredibly fascinating.

Silence is by no means unique in it's quest to study a characters spirituality. But it succeeds incredibly well by framing the perspective of the narrative so tightly on Rodrigues. Torture, physical suffering is a key part of this film and many directors would have tried to make the pain even more painful and the shock even more shocking, but Silence focuses on the psychic suffering. And not the suffering of the victim, but the spectator. Few films have made me as invested in a character as Silence does.

On the other hand, Silence is so specifically Christian that I'm not aware of many mainstream films like it. What I mean by this is that the film doesn't use Christianity and/or Christian symbolism to aid its narrative, but instead the film challenges the viewer to question Christianity and questions related to it straight on. And this is also where my confusion and fascination for this film lies in.

Christianity has been apparent in my life for the whole duration of it; more so in my childhood and less so in my adulthood. Ever since my introduction to it, Christianity, God, Christ, paradise and everything else has confused me, fascinated me, given me hope and again confused me. When I grew up a little bit and having met many Christians, some of them unsure like me and some of them so strong in their belief, I realized that Christian faith and logical thinking are not related. As a young Christian, I heard many testimonies from fellow children and older people of how they had heard the voice of God or even seen God in some cases. That never happened to me and it was impossible for me to conceptualize what had happened to them if anything. I kept waiting and waiting for something to happen to me as my faith was slowly fizzling away.

The viewers impressions of Silence depend heavily on the individuals spirituality and that is why my own reading of the ending of the film is very unclear. What other films, Christian or not, are like this?