Into Great Silence

Debbie Kinder let me borrow the DVD for this movie over the weekend. It is a 2005 documentary film portraying the everyday lives of Carthusian monks of the Grande Chartreuse, high in the French Alps (Chartreuse Mountains). The idea for the film was proposed to the monks in 1984, but the Carthusians said they wanted time to think about it. The Carthusians finally contacted Philip Gröning, the director, 16 years later to say they were now willing to permit him to shoot the movie, if he was still interested. Gröning then came alone to live at the monastery, where no visitors were ordinarily allowed, for four and a half months starting in mid-March 2002. He filmed and recorded the sound on his own, using no artificial light. Additional shooting of the documentary took place in December and January; Gröning spent a total of six months filming in the monastery and took about two and a half years to edit the film before its release. The film has neither commentary nor sound effects added, consisting only of images and sounds of the rhythm of monastic life.

Although it is about Carthusians, not Discalced Carmelites, the common elements of the contemplative life made it familiar to me. You get a real sense of what life is like in such a monastery, although there is no narrative, no story line, no explanation, no background music. It just is. Which is what life in such places is about -- just being. There is only one extended monologue, a few minutes at most by an old monk who is blind. Very sweet and touching, he reminded me of Fr. Evarist at Marylake.

I recall a converstation at dinner once in Chicago when the friars were discussing the question we were always asked: What do you do? The answer we came up with had to do with the meaning of friar -- brother. What we do is brother. It is more about being something than doing something.

The documentary reminded me of that very powerfully.