Film Review: Into Great Silence
An edited transcription from a public email discussion of “Into Great Silence” indicates that this film is a winner: director Philip Groening’s study of the Grande Chartreuse monastery.This is the opening email, written by Father R. and talks about the main character of the movie. Keep in mind that the film is silent, with subtitles, and that it took more than ten years for the filmmaker to receive permission to film the inner life of the monastery. Father R. writes in his message:
“Fr. Laurence Freeman…made a fascinating point, that the major character of the whole is the mysterious God, there everywhere: in the monks, in the hallways and the church, out in the fields. And the implication is that God should be the main character in our lives, in our hallways and church and fields.”
The life of a monk is one dedicated to God. “Into