Lent Reviews Year 8, Week 1: Into Great Silence (2005)

     On the DVD cover of Into Great Silence it is described by various critics as "intoxicating," "breathtaking," and "utterly spellbinding." With all due respect to these critics the only word that really captures the film's essence is sublime. The film's director, Philip Gröning, had asked permission of the Carthusian monks of the Grande Chartreuse monastery in the French Alps to make this film in 1984. They told him they would think about it. Sixteen years later, permission was finally granted and Gröning spent six months in the monastery, without any crew, recording the monks day-to-day life.

     This is not a film for casual viewing nor is it an "informational" documentary about the lives of cloistered monks. Early on, we see two postulants enter the monastery but we never discover if they eventually go on to make their final vows. They do not serve as POV characters nor does the film follow their journey. Indeed, the film has no narrative structure at all but there is a poetic sort of structure that emerges as the film progresses. Dispersed throughout are quotes from the scriptures. Two passages, in particular, are repeated over and over again. The first is the well known words of Our Blessed Lord from St. Luke's Gospel, "Anyone who does not give up all he has cannot be my disciple." The other is from the Prophet Jeremiah, "O Lord, you have seduced me, and I was seduced."

     Both of these passages highlight the contemplative life of poverty that the monks of Chartreuse have dedicated themselves to. They have given up all things to follow the Lord and they have been, in return, "seduced" by His Love. There is very little dialogue, though we do hear the monks read from the Church Fathers and there is also chanting, as we see the monks gather for matins. It is here that we see one of the films most haunting images: a single red candle alight in a sea of darkness. It is largely through such images that the film communicates meaning. Generally, the aforementioned quotes are followed by a series of close-up of the monks, seated as if for an interview. The director is here inviting us to contemplation. How have these words drawn these men to the life we are now witnessing?

     If the juxtaposition of different images and words is used to create meaning, so is the composition and style of the shots themselves. Some shots are excessively grainy (presumably as a result of digital zoom) while others are crystal clear. This is likely due, in part, to practical constraints. The director could only get so many camera set-up on his own and so "created" close-ups in post using a digital zoom. However the grainy look of these shots suggest to me the delicate nature of our earthly existence in comparison to "the Great Eternal Now" of God. Indeed, the occasional glimpses we get of the world outside the monastery (a passing airplane, some tourists roaming around the grounds) are shot this way. 

     The cyclical nature of our temporal experience is, I think, the central theme of the film. The most consistent pattern that persists throughout it echoes that ancient monastic practice of the Rule of Saint Benedict: Ora et labora (pray and work). Much of the film is taken up with observing the monks doing everyday tasks: preparing meals, chopping wood, cleaning up around the monastery; and also engaged in prayer, study, and meditation. This is juxtaposed with shots of the mountains, forests and fields which surround the monastery. There are occasional interruptions of this pattern: a monk goes to feed some stray cats, a herd of cattle wanders into the monastery one morning; but, for the most part, as the seasons come and go, life inside the monastery continues, much the same from day to day, as it has for hundreds of years. 

      The monks are eventually seen to venture outside the monastery (a weekly practice I believe) and engage in a casual conversation, in particular about the practice of washing their hands before entering the refectory. One of the monks suggests that they get rid of this practice, pointing out that the Carthusians of Selignac have not done so for twenty years. Another monk disagrees, arguing that symbolic gestures such as this are vitally important to their way of life. "When we abolish the signs, we lose the orientation. Instead we should search for their meaning. But one should unfold the core of the symbols. The signs are not to be questioned, we are." 

     We are, again, invited to contemplate these words, given as water in the desert. So often in the Church today, forgetting the meaning behind our traditions, we are all too ready to simply discard them. Time spent in silence and contemplation may urge us to rediscover their meaning. And this is what Into Great Silence invites us to do. All of the words in the film, whether spoken or shown in intertitles, have this staying power. One of the monks, a blind man, is interviewed by Gröning, and his words echo throughout the films lasts moments. Some of these words speak to the meeting of time and eternity that I have already alluded to: "In God there is no past. Solely the present prevails. And when God sees us, He always sees our entire life. And because He is an infinitely good being, He eternally seeks our well-being." Others show how, through these patterns and especially through silence, we come to know God:" The closer one brings oneself to God, the happier one is, the faster one hurries to meet Him. One should have no fear of death. On the contrary! For us, it is a great joy to find a Father once again."

     Though the tone of the film is austere, we do, by the end, see the monks engage in all kinds of frivolous activities that one might not necessarily associate with the Religious life. One monk is seen using an electric keyboard to practice singing on key. Another uses a computer to keep track of orders for the wine the brothers make. Some of them even go sledding! The monks lives are filled with these simple joys that most of us take for granted. The ending of the film mirrors the beginning, showing many of the same shots or, at least, similar ones: a monk praying in his cell, glimpses of a fire at night and the sky during the day. It begins and ends with a passage from the book of Kings: "Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper."

     The motto of the Carthusians is Stat crux dum volvitur orbis, Latin for "The Cross is steady while the world turns." Into Great Silence, as its title suggests, invites the viewer to search for the mystery of the Cross and Resurrection amidst the patterns of life and death, winter and spring, that permeate all of our lives.