Into Great Silence (Die Grosse Stille) Movie Review

[Guest guest]

I haven't seen it, yet, but it's on my short

list.

 

"In 1984, German filmmaker Philip Groning asked the Carthusian monks at

the Grande Chartreuse Monastery in the French Alps if he could make a

film about them. They said they'd get back to him and did - 16 years

later. This counts as ASAP for a religious

order established a millennium ago"

 

Into Great Silence (Die Grosse Stille)

Movie Review

A visit to where life is slow and quiet

http://www.combustiblecelluloid.com/2007/intogreatsil.shtml

 

Some folks will call it "meditative," others will call it "slow."

Either

way, Philip Gröning's extraordinary new documentary Into Great

Silence,

about Carthusian monks living in a charterhouse in the French Alps,

beautifully bucks the trend of so many recent documentaries. It

contains

no talking heads or clips and not one sociopolitical issue is explored.

The film merely shows the monks going about their daily business:

praying, chanting, caring for gardens, shoveling snow, sawing firewood,

cooking, eating, etc. It runs just over two hours and 45 minutes and I

wouldn't be surprised if no more than two hundred words are spoken

throughout. Gröning actually encourages viewers' minds to wander during

his long, deliberate images. He intends us to ponder the lives of the

monks, or to ponder our own existence and mortality. In that, Gröning

likes to repeat certain images, such as the chores, or the monks'

solitary eating while looking out their sun-filled windows. Certainly

he

repeats the same printed passages, especially one about being seduced

by

God and one about giving up everything one has. Viewers will probably

attach themselves to one face in particular, a black man who is

inducted

into the order during the film. We see him doing his chores, and we

can't help wondering about him. What's his story? How does he learn his

duties? Does he have any regrets? Gröning shoots using all natural

light, and the results are striking, usually a single square or point

of

light serves the entire frame. His soundtrack is equally spare,

forgoing

any outside musical score, and instead utilizing the scrape of shoes,

the rhythm of chores, and especially the monks' chanting. The director

waited

nearly 20 years for the Grand Prior to grant him permission to film,

and

it was worth the wait. Apparently, the great "Dogme '95"

cinematographer

Anthony Dod Mantle (Mifune,

Dogville)

was a camera operator.

Starring: n/a

Written by: Philip Gröning

Directed by: Philip Gröning

MPAA Rating: Unrated

Language: French, English and Latin with English subtitles

Running Time: 164 minutes

March 16, 2007

Purchase Tickets from MovieTickets.com by

clicking on a linked showtime.

 

Other reviews at http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10006493/

 

 

Kendall Square Cinema

1 Kendall Square

Cambridge, MA

 

1:00 pm,

4:35 pm,

8:00 pm

[Guest guest]

Sounds like the extraordinarly long time Ents took to make decisions, in Tolkein's "Lord of the Rings".-----------------------------"In 1984, German filmmaker Philip Groning asked the Carthusian monks at the Grande Chartreuse Monastery in the French Alps if he could make a film about them. They said they'd get back to him and did - 16 years later. This counts as ASAP for a religious order established a millennium ago" <http://www.boston. com/movies/ display?display= movie & id= 10112>

Bored stiff? Loosen up...Download and play hundreds of games for free on Games.

[Guest guest]

Sat Nam everyone,

 

I saw the movie this week-end. It hurt to see how these monks are so

(intentionally) disconnected from their body and from their breath. And it

also hurt to sit in a small movie theatre house for three hours in a row. So

I spent the whole movie mentally telling them (and myself): inhale deeply

that wonderfully pure mountain air, keep your spine straight, stretch, focus

at your third eye point. How can the mind be elevated when the body is

ignored?

 

I have always found that long movie/theatre/art formats only call for

painful repetitions, unjustified and unnecessary lengths and self-indulgence

on the artist's part. I was somehow expecting this movie to be an exception

to the rule, but it sadly wasn't. And I didn't get nearly as mesmerized or

entranced as I was hoping I would. Only a couple of moments in the movie did

reach my heart. But these moments were interrupted by black slides

repeatedly spelling out the same few short passages from the bibles, most of

them managing to cumulate three negatives statements in one sentence: " If

you don't listen to me and don't give up all your belongings, then you'll

never be my disciple " .

 

" Engrossing, entrancing, enlivening " ? Not really... Disappointing and

frustrating? Yes.

 

Claire

[Guest guest]

Sat Nam Sarabjot Kaur,

I appreciate your kinesthetic sense and perspective. I'm a "Kino",

too, and it leaves me pretty much looking at the world and the people

in it from this "nuclear", "root of it all" kinda place.

Some of the reasons you gave for the discomfort you felt watching

this film are what intrigued me enough to want to see it. I had heard

that there was this palpable sense in the audience as people didn't

quite know what to make of nearly 3 hour long movie that had maybe 200

words of total dialogue. I'll see this sometime soon and come to my own

conclusions OR I'll just an experience without a conclusion. We'll see.

I just hope nobody is bothered by my normal snacking sounds (hee

heeeee).

Have you ever done silence at a Solstice Tantric? or a KRI

Training? I've only dared to do so once (at a Summer Solstice in '94 )

and I was pleasantly and completely shocked by what came up and how

quickly and completely I let it go in a matter of seconds. It was a

great gift at the time and quite a learning. It left me very curious

and open to the idea. You'd think I'd do it more often but I am so

often doing a Seva that requires of me, use of the tongue, palate and

mouth to communicate. I just don't have that luxury.

I guess these Monks have chanting as one of their only outlets.

Pretty wild.

Bless,

Dharam

 

Claire Hallereau wrote:

 

Sat Nam everyone,

I saw the movie this week-end. It hurt to see how these monks are so

(intentionally) disconnected from their body and from their breath. And it

also hurt to sit in a small movie theatre house for three hours in a row. So

I spent the whole movie mentally telling them (and myself): inhale deeply

that wonderfully pure mountain air, keep your spine straight, stretch, focus

at your third eye point. How can the mind be elevated when the body is

ignored? I have always found that long movie/theatre/art formats only call for

painful repetitions, unjustified and unnecessary lengths and self-indulgence

on the artist's part. I was somehow expecting this movie to be an exception

to the rule, but it sadly wasn't. And I didn't get nearly as mesmerized or

entranced as I was hoping I would. Only a couple of moments in the movie did

reach my heart. But these moments were interrupted by black slides

repeatedly spelling out the same few short passages from the bibles, most of

them managing to cumulate three negatives statements in one sentence: "If

you don't listen to me and don't give up all your belongings, then you'll

never be my disciple".

"Engrossing, entrancing, enlivening"? Not really... Disappointing and

frustrating? Yes.

Claire