The unexpected paradox of Into Great Silence is that the overpowering quiet has the effect of intensifying any and all sounds, making the smallest noise seem pregnant with meaning.
DR. SUNIL JOSE CMI
Into Great Silence is a transcendent, transporting experience, a trance movie going deeply into a monastic world that lives largely without words. German documentary filmmaker Groning tried for 15 years to gain admittance to the Grand Chartreuse monastery in the French Alps near Grenoble before the intense, white-robed Carthusians, on site since 1084, and known as the most rigorous and ascetic monastic order in the Western world, let him inside the walls. The resulting film is nearly wordless and relies solely on natural light and ambient sound to convey the daily routine of the monks, their work and their individual prayer sessions.
In the hands of filmmaker Philip Groning, it becomes clear that silence is not the absence of sound, it’s a physical place, a destination with value and meaning in a chaotic world, arrived at with difficulty and departed with regret.
Groning stayed at the monastery for six months, living the life of a monk as well as serving as writer, director, producer, cinematographer and editor on this two-hour and 42-minute film that has played successfully across Europe.
Into Great Silence intends not to observe or provide information. It wants to completely immerse the viewer in the monastic experience, to enable you to feel what it is like to live the life, showing rather than simply telling what being there was like.
All movies are about transformation, in a sense, as we focus - almost reverently - on the glowing screen before us. But we are accustomed to our emotions being marshalled along with music, snappy editing, special effects. Into Great Silence subjects us, instead, to a sort of sensory deprivation - echoing the ascetic lifestyle of these monks, who are bound to a life of near-silent contemplation aside from weekly conversational breaks. Not surprisingly, the first instinct with this film, as it would be with a life of meditation and devotion, is to resist, to feel that not enough is happening to keep us interested and involved. When you add the fact that the monks almost never speak, it’s hard to imagine what the fuss is about.
Gradually, however, Groning’s unobtrusive, respectful camera work draws you into the rhythms of the monastic life, into both the time spent in solitary prayer and the various subsistence occupations the monks take on. At first, the silence feels imposing -practically deafening - as we watch the documentary and the monks of the Grand Chartreuse monastery praying, reading the Bible or simply sitting in quiet contemplation. But as we become acclimated to this muted atmosphere something extraordinary happens: Our senses sharpen. The whispering of snow outside, the clanging of a bell that summons these Carthusians to prayer reach our ears with a resounding purity.
Into Great Silence allows us to feel as if we’re partaking of a contemplative, life-out-of-time experience. The brothers are mostly seen in isolation, but there are scenes showing them together at a service or at a meal, or during the rare periods when they are permitted to speak. Three of the men in particular seem to have caught Gröning's eye: an African novice, an older monk who is seen performing a variety of jobs and a blind brother who talks about his experience of God in simple but deeply moving words.
To provide a hint of what motivates these men to such an extraordinary life, Gröning occasionally cuts to title cards with quotations from the monks' prayers or from the Bible, some of them repeated for emphasis: "Unless a man gives up all he has, he cannot be my disciple." To emphasize the centrality of Catholic worship to the monastic experience, Into Great Silence periodically puts biblical texts, for instance Christ’s pointed admonition that “anyone who does not give up all he has cannot be my disciple,” up on the screen. Especially poignant is a quote from 1 Kings that explains that, although God was not to be found in earthquake or fire, “after the fire came a gentle whisper.”
Worship also plays a key part in the monastery’s soundscape. The ringing of bells divides the day and calls the monks to their frequent prayers, and the only time a monk is seen to rush is when the bell ringer is late to his task. Especially haunting are the night time worship services featuring Gregorian chants that are positively hypnotic coming out of so much silence. For a film that's effectively "about" silence, what we hear plays a powerful role, as simple sounds of a monk walking down a corridor or ringing a prayer bell - or even the sound of dripping water in a brother's cell - take on a resonance that will surely touch even the most nonspiritual men.
The unexpected paradox of Into Great Silence is that the overpowering quiet has the effect of intensifying any and all sounds, making the smallest noise seem pregnant with meaning. Whether it’s the turning of pages, the ticking of a clock or the rustling of fabric, that great silence makes us more alive to what is going on around us. To be aware of the world, the monks would likely say, is to be aware of God’s munificence in creating it for our benefit.
All this may sound rather cold and forbidding, but Into Great Silence shows the monks living fuller lives than one might imagine. On weekends, the French-speaking monks take long walks through the alpine country, chattering away with an endearing fervour that brings us immense relief. And during winter, when they slither and slide down on the slopes using only their sandaled feet and behinds, we laugh with an almost spiritual release. These scenes are a poignant reminder that they're as human as we are. There is also comfort in the testimony of a blind monk who -- in the movie's only interview -- explains his faith and the easy channel to God he believes is available to everyone. His unequivocal contentment -- he's even grateful for the blindness that led him to this calling -- is an affecting message for audiences, no matter how secular. And we realize this movie has not been about zeal, devotion or faith at all, but simple happiness.
Into Great Silence is finally a film where nothing seems to happen but everything comes to pass. Though it likely will not persuade people to join the ranks, experiencing life behind the walls has an undeniable effect. We’ve been allowed a glimpse of eternity. And who would not be changed by that? Into Great Silence reveals itself to be about nothing less than the presence of God. So many spiritually aware films — The Seventh Seal, Crimes and Misdemeanors — are about God’s absence or silence. Here is a film that dares to explore the possibility of finding God, of a God who is there for those who seek him with their whole hearts.
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Dr. Sunil Jose CMI is a well-known poet, artist and a professor of Malayalam literature.
