Thursday, January 18, 2007

Into Great Silence -- monks on the big screen!

Hope no one minds if I re-post this from my blog:

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I've been awfully busy lately, but I thought I'd give a heads-up to anyone in the Vancouver area who might be interested in Philip Gröning's Die Große Stille (2005), AKA Into Great Silence. The film, a mostly silent documentation of the prayers, services and chores performed by the monks of the Grande Chartreuse monastery in the French Alps, is playing at the VanCity Theatre next week, but only on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday nights.

FWIW, I watched this film on a screener in anticipation of last year's film festival, and I suspect its long, long passages of silent introspection and ritualistic chant would work a lot better in a darkened theatre -- not unlike, say, the meditative, don't-munch- the-popcorn-too-loud experience that I had watching James Benning's 13 Lakes -- but like I say, I'm awfully busy these days.

Then again, that's exactly why we need retreats like these, no?

1 comment:

elizabeth said...

i must say that if i was to wacth a movie in a theature this year (since i am utterly outside of normal pop culture from what i can tell) it would be this one... looks really lovely; do not know that it would come to ottawa though...