Into Great Silence

Christianity Today reviews Into Great Silence, a documentary about monasticism. The reviewer, Brandon Fibbs, liked the film very much. Excerpts from the review:

.... Gröning lived as one of the monks for six months in the picturesque Grande Chartreuse monastery, a medieval enclave built into the side of a hill beneath the shadow of the monolithic French Alps outside Grenoble. He carted his own gear, shot his own footage, recorded his own sound—all without the benefit of assistance or supplementary lighting. Sometimes his camera captures exquisite clarity; other times it registers barely enough light to decipher an image—and yet, regardless, each and every shot is magnificent. ....

...The brothers of Grande Chartreuse have taken a vow of silence, and aside from prayers, chants, and a once-a-week excursion outside during which they are allowed to converse with one another, there is no dialogue in the film. Nor is there any sort of musical score. ....

It is a mistake to say this is a silent film. If anything the absence of human speech reveals how much sound we miss. This is a soundtrack of sandals slapping marble, gurgling brooks, songbirds, the swish of fabric, the rustle of pages, the ringing of bells. So powerful is the silence that it seems to embody a sound all its own. One begins to imagine the noise light makes as it streams through windows, splashes across wood, reveals dust particles dancing in the air. ....

As with their worship services, the hermit monks of Grande Chartreuse live their lives in the thrall of liturgy—a sacred rhythm of prayers, mass, study, work, physical labor—a ritual essentially unchanged in the order's thousand-year existence. ....

Once a week, after the Sunday noon meal, the monks are allowed four hours of rest time in which they take a walk into the forests surrounding the monastery. During this time, they are allowed to freely talk amongst themselves. More often than not, the conversation still turns to issues of spirituality, faith, philosophy and the daily practice. On one snow-bound outing, these pillars of religious devotion devolve into schoolboys, using their flowing robes as makeshift sleds to careen down steep hillsides to the giggling delight of their brothers below.

Punctuating the film like chapter markers, Gröning captures his subjects in close-up, pausing for long moments to allow the monks to look directly and often uncomfortably into the glass eye of their beholder. It is amazing how much individuality and personality these men have, despite the fact that we hear so few of them ever utter a word. ....

.... To watch this film is to be in awe. Into Great Silence is a transformative theatrical experience, a spiritual encounter, an exercise in contemplation and introspection, a profound meditation on what it means to give oneself totally and completely, reserving nothing, to God. .... [the review]

Source: Christianity Today: Quiet Time