In the middle of Into Great Silence , the Carthusian monks of the Monastery of the Grand Chartreuse are having a rare meal together. One among them chants the 22nd Chapter of the Statutes of the Order, which among other things, provides that if the monks walk through a town or village on their occasional gadabouts, they are not to enter the houses of seculars. Considering the various things I have read today on the Internet, I think Saint Bruno may have been onto something there. When priests are threatening violence against one another, it was rather refreshing to hear the monks debate one aspect of the Statute in the next scene, maintaining a profound seriousness toward the importance of ritual action while simultaneously cracking jokes.
The Carthusians in some ways are the Amish of the Roman Catholic Church. Their motto is "the cross stands firm as the world turns" and they try to act as if the world has turned very slightly since their foundation. Unlike the Benedictines, they never have had a reform movement. They have electricity and the Prior uses an IBM laptop to manage the monastery's famous liqueur business, but in many other respects it is clear that they would prefer to be untouched by time, especially since they have been twice driven out of their monastery by the French government.
The movie itself is quite strange. It is interspersed with strange title frames such as, "You have seduced me, O God, and I was seduced." The cinematography is fascinated by the faces of the monks and the presence candle in their church. In fact, I would not be surprised if this is intentional: as if the posing monks are being compared with the icon of God in the silence of their house of prayer. Some might say the movie drags. I thought it was slow but generally well-paced. Particularly interesting are the scenes associated with a young novice, Marie-Pierre, an African. You first see him after you have watched the handiest of the lay brothers measure out fabric for his habit. The lay brother fits Marie-Pierre with a silent affection, especially charming as Marie-Pierre draws the black cloak of his novitiate about him. We next see Marie-Pierre being admitted as a novice before the Prior and being embraced by each member of the community in a very awkward and formal manner, but look closely and most of the monks are smiling widely. We next see the monks install Marie-Pierre in his cell, which is slightly larger than my apartment. And later, we hear Marie-Pierre chant in choir a portion of Basil's treatise on the Holy Spirit. Throughout the movie, you receive the impression that Marie-Pierre may be in a snowy realm far from the land of his birth (though that could be France for all I know) but he is finally home.
Unfortunately, this movie is likely to remain in limited release. Hopefully, the DVD will be easier to get when it comes out.
7 comments:
I am really looking forward to this one, Caelius. What was the audience like?
Hmm... Mean age ~55, standard deviation ~10. I was a notable outlier agewise. I really couldn't figure out whether these were the typical Laodicean intelligentsia audience or traditionalist RCs, but I would lean toward the first.
But I did go to a party last night and have a conversation with a Slovenian my age here who had seen the movie recently. He reviewed the movie as long and boring, much like, he supposed, the lives of the monks.
Thanks for the stats. ;-)
I meant, also, was the audience large, and did they seem to like the film? Other than the Slovenians, I mean.
I think you can get on a mailing list to order the CD or something at The New Liturgical Movement blog. I'm not sure what that's actually about, but I did see something like that over there.
The audience was about typical for the time of day and theatre. It's not the type of movie in which you can gauge people's responses, since everyone is making a sincere effort to be quiet so they can hear the long stretches of silence. I don't think anyone left during the movie, which is a good sign.
I really do want to see it, but I doubt it will be at my local cineplex, and the art theater is just too damned far to drive these days. Curse my suburban existence! (But thank the Maker for DVD!)
Here's listing of U.S. theaters where the film is or will be playing.
That kid at NLM is really quite something, isn't he? ;-)
You can get the DVD from amazon.ca, a little cheaper and probably a little faster than through NLM.
I loved the movie, too. The audience when I saw it in Paris was pretty average for any film -- not particularly skewed toward older folks as far as I could tell.
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