The movie captures the feeling of silence, of timelessness, of contemplation, of spiritual discipline, of communion with God and the rejection of the material world.
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03/01/07
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Into Great Silence (2007)
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Reviews Counted:62
Fresh:55
Rotten:7
Average Rating:7.7/10
Consensus: A meditative, deliberately paced doc capable of absorbing patient viewers into a whole different world.
Theatrical Release:Feb 28, 2007 Limited
Box Office: $295,559
Synopsis: INTO GREAT SILENCE fits neatly into the sub-category of films that need to be experienced rather than just watched. Over 162 minutes director Philip Groening films a group of monks who dwell in the... [More]
Director: Philip Groning
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Reviews for Into Great Silence
It sounds more like an endurance test than entertainment, yet this one-of-a-kind experience proves surprisingly immersive.
03/01/07
It's not hard to appreciate the film's gentle pace, mesmerizing imagery and subtle but rich panoply of sounds, as well as its insights about the human drive to lose the trappings of the world and assume a godlier disposition.
03/01/07
A rapturous, absorbing experience -- it has no voice-over, no back story or history, no archival footage and no talking heads -- but only if you can surrender yourself to it.
03/01/07
Top CriticA mesmerizing mood piece which steeps the viewer in the humbling stillness of monastic life, thereby inducing reflection upon one's own relation to God versus the trappings of technology and the rampant materialism of modern society.
02/28/07
[Director] Groning has made a startlingly beautiful, virtually silent three-hour documentary about monastic life that appeals primarily to the senses, and has really very little to do with religious experience.
02/28/07
The achievement of Into Great Silence is the way it captures the slow, delicate rhythm of the Carthusian monks.
02/28/07
Top CriticAlready easily ranks as one of the great cinematic documents of our time.
02/28/07
Navigates to a state of both enlivened permanence and vibrant grace.
02/27/07
Into Great Silence moves into the realm of humble observation. Gröning traces the passing of the seasons with beauty shots of God's creations, from snow drifts and rain puddles to flower petals and kitten whiskers.
02/27/07
Top CriticA non-verbal contemplation of time in itself and of man's place in that dimension, 'Into Great Silence' is striking visually but a trial for viewers.
02/26/07
The film's pacing and its meditative, almost hypnotic quality are completely in fulfillment of [director] Gröning's intentions, not at all a failure to engage. Silence won't engage everyone, but it achieves its purpose.
02/24/07
Pure cinema at its purest and most exalted … a transcendent meditation on the human pursuit of meaning, on man as a religious and social creature; on the rhythm of work and prayer, day and night, winter and spring.
02/16/07
Simply put, the film goes on much too long. There's no real shaping of the story, no real structure to the documentary. What on paper sounds like it could be a fascinating prospect in execution turns out to be something of a snooze.
01/11/07
More than any film outside Bresson, this non-judgemental document allows us to feel the spirituality of the ecstatic privations guiding their journey. A Christmas gift of time and contemplation.
12/30/06
Charming documentary on monastic existence.
11/30/06
A sanctuary of silence, contemplation, respect and inquiry into a quickly vanishing tradition that helped build the world we live in. And it only requires 164 minutes -- hardly a lifetime.
11/06/06
Such a poetic essay on the slowed-down rhythms of life, that its quiet pleasures carry the viewer along at a pace commensurate with the monks' own unhurried sense of time.
10/27/06
Viewing Into Great Silence is meant to mimic the experience of living with the monks.
10/27/06
Top CriticWhat seems to happen when you watch a movie in near total silence is that you become almost sensory-starved -- a meditative state by definition, I suppose.
10/27/06
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