Listen! Do You Smell Something? ‘Into Great Silence’ Coming to North America.

shhh.jpgTired of drunk guys’ mumbling garble during your movies? Sick of teens addicted to sugar/E/smack/crack bellowing during the emotional bits? Well, we’ve got a movie for you, because you won’t be finding anybody like that at this one. In fact, you can leave your pulse at home – it’s ‘Fast and the Furious’ proof. Not saying it’s bad, mind you, apparently it’s great – so says the European Film Academy as it lobbed the award for Best European Documentary its way – The Sundance Festival gave it a special Jury prize back in January as well.

The rightly titled “Into Great Silence” is about a virtually hidden sect of French Monks. [I just lost half the readers I think]. In order to get permission from the “head honcho Monks” to film it, it took the director 16 YEARS. 16 years – the only thing I’ve done for 16 years in my entire life was wait for my nuts to drop. 16 Years for one film – Regardless, this guy must really love his subject. And he loves it quiet.

There’s virtually no dialogue in the entire film as it sets out to contrast our modern, hectic, Fight-Club “Get Out And Buy Stuff” mentality with a trip through the power of stillness and the need for silence in our lives. Therefore, Tony Little probably won’t see it either. North America will get its chance to see-and-not-hear-it at an as of yet, unpublished date.

Source: Hollywood Reporter/Reuters

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6 thoughts on “Listen! Do You Smell Something? ‘Into Great Silence’ Coming to North America.

  1. I was fortunate to see “INTO GREAT SILENCE” in Pasadena this past August.

    For almost 3 hours, I sat mesmerized by this marvelous Documentary about the hidden life at the Motherhouse of the Carthusian Order at Le Grande Chartreuse near Grenoble, France in the spectacular French Alps.

    Dialogue is limited to a very few interviews with these Hermit/Monks….and is then in French. I found the ‘Investiture’ of the Postulants who were becoming Carthusian Novices of special interest. It was almost identical to the time I was invested in the Novice’s Habit of a Trappist Monk at Holy Cross Abbey in Berryville, Virginia.

    “QUID PETITIS” the Abbot asks of the men standing before him. “What do you seek?”

    “MISERICORDIAM DEI ET ORDINIS”……we reply. “The Mercy of God and of the Order”.

    It was most sentimental when these young Carthusian Monks went before each Monk to receive his “PAX” – Kiss of Peace and embrace…..and so it was when I was invested with the Cistercian Habit while the rest of the Community chanted the Litany of the Saints.

    I await the release of the DVD in the U.S.A.

    It was while I was searching for this movie, that I came across reference to: “AN INFINITY OF LITTLE HOURS” by Nancy Klein Maguire.
    This is a remarkable book about five young men who enter St. Hugh’s Charterhouse/Monastery at Parkminster, England. Nancy Klein Maguire follows each of these Monks as they go through their Postulancy, Novitiate up to Solemn Vows. Only one of the five men remain for Solemn Vows.

    This book makes a marvelous companion to “INTO GREAT SILENCE”. They both came about at the same time, but were never a collaborative achievement.

    I read Nancy Klein Maguire’s book first and then was fortunate to see the Movie.

    I recommend “AN INFINITY OF LITTLE HOURS” AND “INTO GREAT SILENCE”. Anyone who is able to acquire the book and see the movie will be doubly blessed.

    Both of these works will give one a feeling of walking through the Cloisters of St. Hugh’s and Le Grande Chartreuse and of the Thunder of Silence that awaits those who are fortunate to enter, rest and pray therein.

  2. I think this looks really interesting, and the idea of almost no speaking is a cool one. I’ll check it out for sure. Maybe MY balls will drop by then too.

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