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Into Great Silence

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 20 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 11 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Documentary | Foreign
Written by: Philip Gröning
Directed by: Philip Gröning
Release Date:
Theatrical: February 28, 2007
Running Time: 169 minutes, Color
Origin: France / Switzerland / Germany
Language(s): French / Latin (with English subtitles)
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
This documentary about an ascetic monastery is one of the most mesmerizing and poetic chronicles of spirituality ever created. More meditation than documentary, it's a rare, transformative theatrical experience for all. (Zeitgeist Films)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site Film Forum Profile
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Boston Globe Ty Burr
One of the transporting film experiences of this or any other year.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Walter Addiego
The silence captured in this documentary -- a meditative look at life in the Carthusian monastery of the Grande Chartreuse in the French Alps -- may be the most eloquent you'll ever hear.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan
You might not be able to picture yourself in such a life, but you'll be glad that it persists.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
I hesitate, given the early date and the project's modesty, to call Into Great Silence one of the best films of the year. I prefer to think of it as the antidote to all of the others.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
Groning's approach gives the viewer a rare chance to really listen to what water sounds like when it drips from a tin bowl, or the watch what patterns raindrops make when they fall on a shallow puddle -- purely sensual, cinematic experiences. In such moments we sense the point of view of a patient, sensitive filmmaker.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
This beautiful, unfolding film is an antidote to the high-velocity, maximum-volume world most of us find ourselves immersed in, offering a glimpse into a rigorously spiritual alternative. Its calmness, its reflection, is full of allure.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
A film of great spiritual intensity and haunting minimalism that enlarges your concepts of movies and of life. Like the monks of the Carthusian order, it distills something intoxicating through a style that's pure and rigorous.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Marta Barber
Groening doesn't judge the monks' actions, nor does he tell us much about their reasons for choosing such a life. Yet the film brings us into their lives not as an observer but almost as a fellow hermit, making you realize how hard -- or easy -- it would be to commit yourself to such a life.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
As we vicariously participate in their daily rituals, we find ourselves at the ground level of spiritual worship. It's hard to recall a similar documentary that brings viewers so palpably close to that sacred experience.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
This 2005 feature is demanding to say the least, but its pulse-slowing rhythms leave a real sense of peace.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
This is a remarkable work of pure documentary cinema, and a mystical accomplishment on the order of Wagner's "Parsifal" or Tarkovsky's "The Sacrifice." That's hardly anybody's thing these days -- it's not often mine. But the effort, in this case, is worth it.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
A transcendent, transporting experience, a trance movie that casts a major league spell by going deeply into a monastic world that lives largely without words.
Read Full Review >New York Post V.A. Musetto
The overwhelming silence is broken mainly by chanting and the ringing of the monastery bells. Call it life in the slow, slow, slow lane.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray
As a place to enter and meditate, Into Great Silence is imminently worthy, but as a documentary, it doesn't do enough to probe the meaning of the quotation Gröning returns to repeatedly: "Oh Lord, you have seduced me, and I was seduced."
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
Gröning makes us fully feel the rhythms of their lives, but for the same reasons that most of us couldn't or wouldn't last in such a stripped-down environment, the movie, at just shy of three hours, starts to feel oppressive after two.
Read Full Review >Variety Jay Weissberg
With a painterly eye and a deep appreciation for the hermetic world set apart from, rather than at odds with, modern life, helmer Philip Groening takes the viewer into their cloistered world.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Michelle Orange
Natural light is used to euphoric effect, inevitably summoning the old masters, and Gröning's frames are balanced and symmetrical, in Renaissance-ready emulation of God's perfection.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
The movie has a hushed sensual resonance, but it turns faith into an endurance test.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
At once eerie, picaresque, evocative, and utterly alien to the reality most viewers inhabit, Into Great Silence is a daring and breathtakingly constructed documentary dream. So much so that the more restless among us may find themselves nodding off.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Susan Dunne
Try as I might, I could not love it, because as a piece of cinema, Into Great Silence would try the patience of a saint.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 9.1 (out of 10) based on 11 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Patrick F. gave it a9:
Anyone who thinks that life is simply not worth considering without their TiVo/PDA/BMW/whatever needs to be dragged by their ear and tied down in front of the entirety of this meditation on simplicity, humanity, and connectedness to both well-aged tradition and ageless contemplation of the Absolute. Yes, the pacing can be euphemistically described as "contemplative," and it is quite lengthy (be in a good seat lest your neck and hindquarters protest mightily), but it practically forces the viewer to consider, often deeply, what is going on and why these people feel so compelled to live with such an intention. Touche, Michael Bay.
David LC gave it an8:
For those who have been and are curious about monastic life in its most severe application, this documentary is a MUST SEE! The films absolute clarity and maintaing the every-day routine of the Cicerstian Order of Monks is awesome and so true to the reality of the monk's life in the cloistered monastary. An ongoing thread in the film sums up quite precisely the "m.o." of what each individual man must "buy into" to be commited to the severity of the monastic life: "The Lord seduced me; and I was seduced!" One flaw of the documentary: way too long in duration...a fault of the director/producer. This film could have easily gotten its powerful message across in less than two hours.
Leiris gave it a10:
One of the great film-going experiences of my life. Seeing this in a large audience was remarkable…2.5 hours of complete immersion (and silence). Describing it as a meditation is a excellent description; and I cannot think of a more appropriate title.
Pat G. gave it a9:
I loved it. Fascinating. The beauty of the stone, the wood, the ancient architecture, the monks--and the silence--is stunning. Yes, nothing really happens, but it all feels very meaningful and potent. And I did not tire of it after two hours as some reviewers did. I went to a Saturday matinee, and the theater was packed! Apparently people do appreciate such things. I certainly do.
