03/09/2005

A silent snowfalls on the Carthusian monastery in Grenoble. Within the walls, slow gestures, prayers in an undertone that rises skywards searching for the path to God. "He who renounces the world, its pleasures and its riches, shall receive the grace of God" Jesus Christ said and everyone knows that the most difficult sacrifice for Man is that of speech.

The very talented documentary maker Philip Groning was born in Dusserdolf in 1959 and grew up between Germany and the United States. He has been thinking of shooting Die grosse Stille ("Into Great Silence") since 1984. Together with a very productive staff and with the help of Bavaria Film and that of the Swiss company Ventura Films, he made this extraordinary documentary on monastic life, on the extremism of a choice that leads out of the world and time itself.
Time is of great importance for Groning: "The most important element of my work is to succeed in getting into the spectator’s rythm, i.e. in the time one sits in front of the screen. I have always been fascinated by the idea of making something in which language was useless and in which it is the very rhythm that becomes the main character.

(Translated from Italian)