Categories: films
Date: 17 March 2008 19:15:41
Die Große Stille is a film by Philip Gröning which I went to see at the cinema about a year ago. It follows the year in the lives of a community of monks at the Grand Chartreuse monastery in France. The English title of the documentary is Into Great Silence - which is apt - as it takes you on a journey into a silent world which is only interrupted by the sound of the chapel bell, the monks singing psalms, readings at mealtimes and the sounds of the tasks they perform, such as in the kitchen or when making new robes.
Last night at church the speaker was relating how she had been on a retreat recently which had been advertised as having "periods of silence". She took this to mean half an hour here, an hour there and was completely staggered to find that it meant two and a half days of complete silence. As she relaxed into the rhythm of her new existence she found that when the two and a half days were over she experienced a certain amount of trauma at having to talk again. There was a certain amount of sympathetic laughter when she said this but I could understand something of what she meant.
As I both live on my own and work on my own, sometimes two or three days can pass without speaking to anyone. I can sometimes find just attending a church service quite draining - not because I have to interact with lots of people - but just being in a building with 100 others can feel to exhaust me. Some people may find this hard to believe of me as I have often been told that I talk a lot. Perhaps I do. But perhaps judged against everyone else's weekly output of words my contribution would rank quite low. I could understand yesterday evening's speaker though because my experience is that if you spend a lot of time not speaking you almost have to "warm up" again and get used to it. I think her point was perhaps more that she felt she had been in the presence of God and the chattering presence of other people was an interruption. My periods of silence are on a much more earthly plane, I'm afraid, but it means that I don't undergo major trauma everytime I see someone!
The film Die Große Stille is out on DVD if you are interested in watching it. It has subtitles but they are hardly necessary! I would suggest you do not watch it in a comfy chair after a big meal. You might just find you miss most of it!