Into Great Silence

The Grand Chartreuse monastery in the French Alps is home to the Carthusians, an order of monks who have taken strict vows of contemplation and silence. Director Philip Gröning waited thirteen years for permission, and then made a simple and memorable film in the six months he spent living among the monks, filming their daily routines, and watching the turn of the seasons with them. The film enters completely into the mindset of those within the walls, as it renounces all voiceover narration, dialogue, music and other forms of visual distraction. The result is meditation on stillness and silence that helps explain why the film has had an extraordinary impact on audiences wherever it has been shown. The viewing experience becomes one of watching and listening intently. You will see no other film this year in which sound becomes such a palpable force. As Gröning puts it, “the moment itself becomes very, very strong."

The simplicity and repetition, the routine and functionality of the monks’ existence, serves not to draw them away from the world but to affirm their place within it; to be aware of themselves, explains Gröning, and knowing that “by being aware of themselves, they are in the face of God.”

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