Demanding intense submission, Philip Gröning’s Into Great Silence charts the daily rituals and lives of Carthusian monks at France’s mountainside Grande Chartreuse monastery with a rigorous patience, tranquility and – per its title – silence that’s something to behold. Gröning’s film is non-fictional, but it’s less a documentary in any traditional sense than simply a document of painstaking piousness, its subjects going about their daily customs and chores with a methodical precision and calmness that’s amplified by the near total quiet enveloping them. Nothing remotely dramatic occurs throughout the 162-minute runtime, its “action” amounting to sights of monks mending clothes, getting their hair cut, tending to fields, and attending prayer chants. Yet as Gröning’s camera fixates on these seemingly mundane events, a sense of deep faith (aided by intermittent title cards featuring snippets of scripture) becomes palpable, and entrancing. Which isn’t to say that the repetitiveness of the proceedings doesn’t eventually become somewhat enervating, nor that these pious men’s devotion to God, because it’s wholly isolated from other people or the outside world, doesn’t feel a bit like religious masturbation. But even at its most frustrating, Into Great Silence is hypnotic – and legitimately attuned to the spiritual – in a way few cinematic works are.
I'm glad you were able to see this one prior to the publishing of your list. In a practical way, I agree with the reviewers who found the monks' dedication somewhat troubling, but the way Groning filmed it, for me, removed all particulars of religion or belief, instead framing their actions as pure dedication to a higher cause (not power), which is the most I think any conscious entity can do with their life. There were times when I flirted with naming it my #1 (really, any of the top five could have made the spot). Ultimately, though, nothing proved more transcendent than being threatened by an evil gum drop with a lip ring.
Posted by: rob | January 18, 2008 at 09:33 PM
I totally agree with Rob. For me, this was about the rhythms of life, and depicted total concentration on a single ideal, more than any 'religious masturbation'. Whatever you think of the monks, the film truly conveys something more profound than a simple examination of their existence.
Posted by: Chris | January 21, 2008 at 08:38 PM
I completely agree that it's about dedication to a single idea/cause, and in that sense it's quite entrancing. But the cause itself - and the form that said dedication takes - is still open for discussion.
Posted by: Nick | January 21, 2008 at 10:24 PM