Into Great Silence - Review

Having spent yesterday afternoon at the cinema, I am compelled to review what must be the most remarkable film I have ever seen: Into Great Silence (Die Große Stille).

Now, when I say that this film was one of the most remarkable, it is not solely because I fancy watching almost three hours’ worth of ‘church scenes’, or that my penchant for the ancient strains of chant was well-satisfied. These things may be true, but the case for Into Great Silence goes much, much deeper.

Into Great Silence can be described as little short of a portrayal of the Catholic Faith itself. In this film, filmmaker Philip Gröning follows around the Carthusian monks of La Grande Chartreuse for four months, representing each of the four seasons. He was permitted to use no lighting other than that which he found in the monastery, and there is no soundtrack to the film other than the sounds of the monks in their cells, at work, and in the chapel. As a result, there is nothing to distract the viewer from the subject, and nothing to manipulate the viewer’s perception. It is as pure a vision of a subject as one could hope for from any medium.

Yet the film is not devoid of interpretation. It is simply that the interpretation is so sympathetic to the spiritual immensity of what is being portrayed, shy of personal spiritual direction, one can hardly imagine a more intimate experience of humanity’s encounter with the Divine. For a three-hour film with no soundtrack and no action to be riveting might represent a miracle, but a miracle is precisely what this film is.

As the film unfolds, one is drawn through time as it corresponds to eternity. The seasons pass; the stars move through the sky; the hours of the day slowly tick away; the monks go about their tasks and they pray. That is it. Then, into this sublime anti-narrative are woven quotations from different sources expressing some aspect of what it is to commune with God, all framed by the quotation that begins and ends the film:

‘…a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.’

In the beginning, we are extended a quiet invitation. By the end, that invitation has been consummated, and we are left in no doubt as to what it is we have encountered. 

Gröning must have been affected by his experience of the monastery and the life he found there. I have no knowledge of his personal religion, but his insight into what he was a witness to is both profound and profoundly sympathetic. The film helps us see what the monks already know: that the rhythm of prayer, the Liturgy, and of life in God’s world are so closely intertwined, that to enter into them is to enter into the life of God.

Philip Gröning has done in three hours of the Great Silence what it would take countless theological texts to describe. This film is a gift to every person, and will be especially appreciated by those who are seeking a reminder of what the Christian life is all about. It is unmistakably Lenten, but it is equally Paschal and Incarnational. As I enthusiastically declared above, Into Great Silence is a portrayal of the Catholic Faith itself.