Into Great Silence
Zeitgeist Films | Release Date: February 28, 2007 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
78
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 20 Critics
Positive:
19
Mixed:
0
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Boston GlobeTy Burr
One of the transporting film experiences of this or any other year. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleWalter 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
91
Portland OregonianMarc Mohan
You might not be able to picture yourself in such a life, but you'll be glad that it persists. Read full review
90
The New York TimesA.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
88
TV Guide MagazineKen 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
88
Chicago TribuneMichael 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
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven 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
88
Miami HeraldMarta 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
80
SalonAndrew 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
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth 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
80
Washington PostDesson 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
80
Chicago ReaderJ.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
75
New York PostV.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
75
The A.V. ClubNoel 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
70
VarietyJay 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
70
Village VoiceMichelle 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
70
L.A. WeeklyElla 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
67
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
The movie has a hushed sensual resonance, but it turns faith into an endurance test. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarc 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
25
Baltimore SunSusan 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
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