Martin Scorsese’s Silence is not the kind of film that aspires to popularity.

Partly this is because, as a viewing experience, it feels at times like an inventory of increasingly horrifying ways to die. Words like “harrowing”, “grim” and “punishing” pepper the reviews.

Partly as well, I suspect, it’s because the internal logic of the story – the logic, to put it baldly, of martyrdom – is so alien to us.