FILM REVIEW

The seduction of 'Into Great Silence'

Reviewed by Andrew Junker, The Catholic Sun
May 17, 2007

The first thing anyone will say about the film “Into Great Silence” is that it’s long.

The movie, which documents the lives of Carthusian monks living in the famous Grande Chartreuse monastery in the French Alps, clocks in at nearly three hours.

And for those three hours, the film is almost completely devoid of dialogue. The stillness of “Into Great Silence” pervades the theatre so completely that many times the only sound in the darkened room is the faint whirring of the projection machine.

This is unsettling at first, and I found myself trying to make my body as still as possible to conform to the setting. My limbs didn’t take their imposed rigidity too kindly and splayed themselves in the aisle after about an hour.

But the silence — or rather, the small sounds of life that are never heard in a city — begins to work itself on the audience in strange ways.

An ancient cart creaking slowly down a hallway to deposit food in each monk’s cell; the quiet dripping of water off a freshly cleaned bowl; the whisper tall trees make as the wind bends their tops.

These sights and sounds appear in variations throughout the film in meditative repetition.

Each scene unfolds, lingers for a while and then fades away to another shot of quiet simplicity. As I entered into the silence, though, my senses became much keener. What might have struck me as banal — another shot of sunlight landing on freshly cut fruit — became complex and cause for meditation.

Quotes from Scripture appear and reappear throughout to emphasize the film’s repetitive nature. A line from Jeremiah appears most frequently: “O Lord, you have seduced me, and I was seduced.”

Once again, the viewer only learns the beauty of repetition as the film goes on. At first glance, this quote seems self-explanatory. These men fell in love with the Lord so greatly that they entered into a life where they could follow Him more closely.

The second or third time the quote appears, the viewer ponders it more fully.

Following that line in Jeremiah — but not shown on screen — comes this lament: “You were too strong for me, and you triumphed. All the day I am an object of laughter; everyone mocks me … the word of the Lord has brought me derision and scorn all the day.”

Some Bibles render “seduced” as “duped” or “tricked.” It’s a strong statement, not nearly as romantic as the quote first appears.

The viewer realizes that the attraction God and the monastic life have offered these men is an object of ridicule to the world, which cannot understand the powerful mystery they hold.

I began to ask the same question as the film progressed. Everything — the colors, the sounds, the deliberate actions the monks took day in and day out — began to seduce me. Why was this? What was so attractive?

I found the answer while the monks chanted their night office. The only lights puncturing the chapel’s darkness were the lamps in each monk’s choir stall illuminating their books.

They were singing the Benedícite, the canticle of praise offered by the three young men in the book of Daniel as they emerged unscathed from the furnace.

“Benedícite, sol et luna, Dómino: benedícite, stellæ cæli, Dómino.” — Sun and moon, bless the Lord; stars of the heaven, bless the Lord.

They chanted this canticle and the camera zoomed in on the text of endlessly repeating lines with the first letter of Benedícite in red, the rest in black.

“Benedícite, fontes, Dómino: benedícite, mária et flúmina, Dómino.” — Springs, bless the Lord; seas and rivers, bless the Lord.

And I realized that what was so seductive in the film was the way time seemed both infinite and immediate. These monks spend each day in nearly identical fashion to the next for decades of their lives.

There is no end in sight to their risings and praying, working and reading, eating and sleeping. At the same time, each action they take appears as the eminently right action.

Now it is time for them to clean their bowls, so they clean their bowls. There is no worry that maybe they should be doing something else or spending their time more wisely.

This makes time seem to contract and focus on each action, elevating the work they do in the garden or their private spiritual reading into perfect, beautiful, timeless moments.

“Benedícite, cete, et ómnia, quæ movéntur in aquis, Dómino: benedícite, omnes vólucres cæli, Dómino.” — Whales and all that move in the water, bless the Lord; birds of the sky, bless the Lord.

When time appears this way, — as both expansive and immediate — it is easier to see how every creature on earth praises Him by their existence. The Carthusians in the film do the same. Every act they make is an act of love and praise to God, no matter how boring or foolish it may seem to the outside world.

Viewers are left awestruck and seduced themselves by these men who exist as a joyful sign of contradiction. It is a welcome sign, as attested to by the audience remaining silently seated as the credits rolled three hours later.

No one seemed to want to return to the world outside.

Andrew Junker is a staff writer at The Catholic Sun. Comments are welcome. Send e-mail to letters@catholicsun.org.