A documentary about life among Carthusian monks is getting terrific reviews. The LA Times loves it. So does Newsday. A. O. Scott of the New York Times, writes: I hesitate, given the early date and the project’s modesty, to call “Into Great Silence” one of the best films of the year. I prefer to think of it as the antidote to all of the others.
The Boston Globe’s story about filmmaker Philip Groning is here. It includes this summary.
… the austere, 162-minute film, with its sublime, painterly images and ambient sounds, is contemplative, meditative , and intensely introspective, capturing the poetic, unhurried rhythms of everyday life in the monastery. Gröning, who directed, produced, shot , and edited the film, sought to collapse the dividing line between the screen and the audience, immersing viewers into the world of the monastery and allowing them the opportunity to surrender to the rituals and repetitions of its inhabitants and the changing seasons that occur outside the windows of the stone charterhouse.
(Hat tip to Robert Ginn)