I just finished watching Le Grand Silence, Die Große Stille, Into Great Silence, a beautiful film on the monastery, La Grande Chartreuse, 25 kms outside of Grenoble, France. The film isn't for everyone — there is very little talk, almost no music (other than the Chartreusian plainsong chants), and no narrative voice-over to explain what is going on. Instead, one enters into the deep silence of this incredibly ascetical order devoted to silent contemplation, where a monk's cell becomes his desert and where he spends most of his time as a hermit within community. Watching this film is almost like seeing Andrew Wyeth still-life paintings put to video. It helps knowing the rhythm of the daily office hours and basics of monastic life.
Way back in 1976 with my French 'family' I went to La Grande Chartreuse. Given the solitary nature of the order, visitors do not enter the actual monastery; instead, they visit a museum that has a miniature monastery in which a monk's cell is replicated and where one can hear their music. Beyond the museum is seeing the sheer severity and beauty of the site with cliffs rising high behind the monastery.
Although I was underage at the time, I did manage to bring back two bottles of Chartreusian cognac for my father.
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This is the first film I have downloaded from iTunes and I can't say I am 100% pleased: it is awfully grainy in places and there are even spots in the film that made me think I was watching an old reel to reel film (little spots and streaks). I think I may buy the CD from the distributor; I'll only be out $10.00.
2 comments:
I got it from Netflix and was awed by its heft and its silence.
Ah - to be there!
I rented the DVD ovr a year ago and it's a magnificent visual document.
Watching it brought Thomas Merton to mind in Gesthemini before the reforms there.
David@Montreal
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