Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2765 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-05-14
• Rating: Exempt
• Format: PAL
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 164 minutes

Synopsis
Filmed on location at the Grande Chartreuse – a monastery located in the French Alps that hadn’t been photographed since 1960, INTO GREAT SILENCE was a labour of love for its director, Philip Groning – one that would take almost 20 years to be realised onscreen.

With no dialogue, interviews of commentary, INTO GREAT SILENCE becomes the monastery, rather than being a depiction of one and allows the viewer to the ability to embrace awareness and contemplate the lives of the men that have sacrificed everything to devote themselves to god.

Customer Reviews

Wonderful - makes a person think.
Gosh is is an outstanding film that follows the lives on the monks. After watching this I almost feel that I have been there and lived a life these these people of God. This fim takes commitmment and time to watch but it is worth it.

Not a crowd-pleaser, but....
This is no ordinary film. It cannot be labled as either 'too long' or too short', neither is it a Hollywood popcorn-crunching crowd-pleaser movie. It's a one off plunge into spiritual monastic life that requires a fair degree of patience, maturity and open-mindedness to watch and take in.
I bet those who didnt enjoy it first time around would do so some years in the future when they were perhaps more open-minded, older, or more spiritually mature.

One thing I find amusing is when people say "this film is far too long". What they are really saying is "these monks have spent twenty, thirty, forty years in their monastic routine but I myself can't sit still for three hours to watch this film depicting their routine and life as I've more important things to do, like, er, um, like watching football or playing my Xbox.
;)

Sleep inducing excellence
Despite my "Sleep inducing excellence" title I have got to proclaim that this DVD is one of the most beautiful pieces I have ever seen. The structure of the film is designed so as that words are not needed to pass over to the viewer the in's and out of what it is to a monk at the monastery all the way from the newest to the oldest brother. The film has an almost meditative quality which led to me having to watch it again and again without falling asleep. A must buy