Into Great Silence is. . . well. . . I’m not sure what to call it. Not a documentary, as it’s not informative in the way I expect a documentary to be. In fact, there’s very little sound and hardly any words.
Which isn’t too surprising when you consider that it was filmed at one of the charterhouses of the Carthusian monks — an order which takes a vow a silence.
Here’s something the director said in his shooting diary:
Mindfullness in itself is beauty. To teach how to see: that’s what the film should attain. To see. See what is there.
And yet, it most certainly is a documentary in that it lays before us the daily lives of these men, in silence and contemplation. While I would not claim to know what it is like to live as they do, it seems to me that this film allows, for a brief moment, for me to feel what it’s like to live in such a way. For a moment, I felt as if I could see.
(Official site is here. It’s a little slow to load.)
I’ve been meaning to see this movie for a while. I’m so glad you wrote about it. It seems like a good one for Lent!
Thanks for the recommendation. I saw a trailer sometime back and though it visually looked interesting, I couldn’t make out the “plot”. Now that I know there isn’t one, I can stop worrying about it and just enjoy.