The German documentarist Philip Groening waited patiently for 13 years before the Carthusian monastery of the Grande Chartreuse in the French Alps near Grenoble invited him to make a film about their lives, laying down the conditions that there should be no artificial light, no music (other than their own Gregorian chants), no interviews, no commentary and no accompanying crew. The result is the 164-minute Into Great Silence, a meditation on lives given over to poverty, prayer and solitude. It's an experience from within a repetitive, spiritual existence, rather than an explanatory, exploratory documentary. Groening lived in a cell of his own for a total of four months, covering all seasons, communicating with the monks through letters, shooting 120 hours of material, and in an almost God-like way working as director, producer, scriptwriter, cinematographer, sound recordist and film editor. Read more...
With heightened awareness in the audio department I went for a walk after the film finished and heard such squawking from the bushes. A nest of tiny orphaned birds, most likely destined to die very fast. We think the mother has been eaten...probably Smudge our cloister cat. Spare a thought.
