Into Great Silence

A German filmmaker named Philip Gröning once asked Carthusian monks for permission to film a documentary of their lives. They responded affirmatively 16 years later and Gröning then came alone to live at the monastery, where no visitors were ordinarily allowed, for a total of six months in 2002 and 2003. He filmed and recorded on his own, using no artificial light. He then spent 2.5 years editing the film. The final cut of ‘Into Great Silence’ contains neither spoken commentary nor added sound effects. It consists of images and sounds that depict the rhythm of monastic life, with occasional intertitles displaying selections from Holy Scripture.