Into Great Silence (Two-Disc Set)  

Favorite

Rave Reviews (19)*

• 1) A look inside cloistered walls.

  by M. A. Ramos on April 11 2007
    280+ helpful votes

  Zeitgeist Films presents a documentary directed and written by Philip Groning. In French and Latin with English subtitles. Filmmaker Philip Groning spent six months living among the monks of the Grand Chartreuse Charterhouse in the French Alps for his documentary "Into Great Silence." The filmmaker was granted unprecedented permission to film in 2002. This was not given lightly, for his request was put forth to the prior sixteen years earlier.
  
  This is cinema at its purest and most exalted. It is hard to place into words a film, which is wrought in silence. For 162-minutes you will be allowed a glimpse of the ascetic strictness of the monks. I do not see this as a documentary, but an immersion into an entire way of life that will have no voiceovers or explanations. Just a small part of our time spent in transcendent meditation on the human pursuit of meaning, on man as a religious and social creature, on the form and function of symbols, ritual and traditions. And on the rhythms of work and prayer, night and day, winter and spring.
  
  It is a beautiful film where everyone will take away something different and hopefully fulfilling. The film will not allow you to enter the world of the monks, but to just view it from the outside. You will see the day-to-day activities from season to season and be able to form your own opinions and conclusions. Many may at first experience impatience at the repetitions and variations encountered, but allow yourself time to adjust to the contemplative pace. And be witness to the ordinary moments that taken together are a representation of grace.
  
  The Carthusian monks who are the subjects of this documentary do not have a great deal to say. Living in a light-filled stone charterhouse in a picturesque valley in the French Alps, they bind themselves to a vow not of literal silence but of extreme reticence. We view the daily lives, prayers and routines of this most ascetic of Catholic Orders founded in 1084 by Saint Bruno. The monks, because of their vow of poverty, subsist on very little. They pray aloud at times and sing solemn Gregorian chants, but they rarely speak, except on there Monday walks.
  
  The monks in their rigor and discipline find their freedom and fulfillment. Your view on the monastery and our world will change as the movie progresses. And isn't that what a good movie or book is suppose to accomplish? It is a world of yesteryear as it existed one thousand years ago, where some modern technology has crept in, as you will see. In our modern world of moral decay this gives us a window to a traditional Catholic existence. A two thousand year tradition of following the Desert Fathers into a way of life that is rarely, if ever, seen.
  
  I feel that this film is about the presence of God, a God who is there for those who seek Him with their whole hearts. In the film only a blind monk offers some simple but piercing observations on Christian happiness, abandonment to God's providential care, and the tragedy of the loss of faith and meaning in the modern world.
  
  This film is not only for Catholics, it is for everyone in the world to see and benefit from.
  

• 2) Should have been called "Into Great Happiness"

  by Eric on May 06 2007
    130+ helpful votes

  I saw this film in the Independent Film Forum in NYC's Greenwich Village, and ended up having a two hour discussion about it afterwards. The main thing that shocked me about this film was how happy all of these monks are. If anyone would tell the average modern American to have every hour of the rest of your life neatly regimented into time segments, without time for television, vacations, or intimacy with members of the opposite sex, most Americans would thing of that as being excruciatingly difficult. However, when looking at the daily activities of these men, you "get it". Because of the regimentation of their daily tasks, when they do get a few hours on Sunday to talk, those hours are beautiful and meaningful. Their lives seem like the way life was supposed meant to be, one of hard work and communion with the Creator. I highly recommend this movie to anyone looking for a film that will slow their mental pace down and make them reflect on the importance of the various things you value in your own life.

• 3) Fascinating, if slow, documentary about carthusian monks

  by Andres C. Salama on April 05 2007
    100+ helpful votes

  This almost silent three hour documentary tracks the daily lives of Carthusian monks living at the Chartreuse Monastery in the French Alps, as they live in a way that seems to be in such contrast with the modern world. It's a fascinating movie if you are able to get into the slow rhythm of the film (if you are still in the movie theater after an hour, you will probably made it to the third hour). By the same token, it would be almost impossible to see it in your house on DVD, since there are so many possible distractions that would make you want to stop the film. Remarkably, given that European filmmakers tend to be among the most secular people in the world, the movie is also surprisingly respectful of the choices made by the monks in living in this particular way.

• 4) Filming the imageless life

  by saintmaur on August 09 2007
    50+ helpful votes

  The last year or so has seen a virtual revolution in our understanding of the human aspect of Carthusian life. First there was the revealing study of several former Carthusian monks by Nancy McGuire, An Infinity of Mirrors, and now the documentary Into Great Silence. The reversal of Carthusian anonymity might be well symbolized by the haunting close-ups of the faces of Carthusian monks in the film. Previously, all that one would ever see of Carthusians in pictures was their backs. Even then, their cowls were raised to conceal any suggestion of individuality.
  There is, nonetheless, in this revealing film, a fundamental flaw that leaves the Carthusians as mysterious (and perhaps open to misunderstanding) as they have ever been. The film is essentially a work of art, a sensitive rendering of a beautiful monastic environment. Yet anyone who approaches the Carthusian experience as essentially aesthetic is missing the point: and this error is likely the reason why so many attempt this vocation and soon depart (the retention rate holds steady at about 10% of all who enter). It is a life of unending sameness, intentionally tedious in its repetition, forcing the Carthusian to slowly minimize his submersion in the physical world with its seductions and beauties. It is certainly true that one paradoxical consequence of such routine is intense attention to physical details: the beautiful setting, the subtle nuances of the liturgy, the fly returning to a dinner pear. But in this film, such physical details seem to form the core of the life. In reality such attention to the beautiful small details of natural life soon becomes tedious (both for the Carthusian and the viewer of the film); and the monk must move beyond images to the spiritual core of the vocation: the imageless contemplation of God.
  The film does attempt to suggest this core in the repeated images of monks engaged in meditative prayer. But watching someone meditate is a far cry from the experience itself. The latter is endlessly eventful and increasingly profound. The observation of it is unbearably tedious. I give the filmmaker credit for attempting to represent the Imageless,but the images of film are, finally, the antithesis of contemplation. Restless Americans seem to have particular difficulty with such uneventful living. Witness the change from of the original German title: "Die grosse Stille" to the English "Into Great Silence", the latter promising us action and movement rather than just Being, to put it philosophically.
  On the other hand, in its attempt to present the Unchanging, the film is excessively silent. Although its structure suggests the flow of Carthusian days and seasons, the lack of explication leaves an uninitiated viewer with little understanding of the intentional balancing of this essentially eremitic life with community living: the alternation between solitary liturgical prayer and the choir liturgy is suggested, but not explained. The conversation for maintaining human relations in an otherwise intensely solitary life, is recorded here, the talk both erudite and amusing, another little known characteristic of Carthusian life.But its weekly occurance is not pointed out. The sleeping arrangements, the daily interruption of sleep at midnight for the night office, and the rigorous fasts (bread and water at least once a week) are significant elements of the life that are not featured here.
  As other reviewers have noted, with one dramatic exception, the monks do not speak about their lives. I suspect that since Carthusians Have left "the world" this was a condition of filming. At first, I did not appreciate this, but on reflecting, their silence conveys the core of this life more powerfully than interviews which would likely have been mundane and pietistic. The Carthusian life, as the film makes clear, leaves speech far behind.
  So, for a number of reasons, I was unhappy with the film. On the other hand, many weeks later, the images of these silent white figures in their echoing cloisters keep coming back at odd moments during my busy days in the world...theologically that is one purpose of this mysterious life.
  
  

• 5) The Thunder of Silence

  by Claudio-Miguel on April 14 2007
    40+ helpful votes

  I was fortunate to view this Documentary last year in Pasadena, California.
  
  I went to see it again last month in Santa Monica, California.
  
  It is to a Documentary like this that people will view over and over and ask themselves the question of: "Why"? The life of a Carthusian Monk is so far removed from our life in the World and we ask ourselves why one is drawn to become a Carthusian Monk.
  
  There is no religious order that takes a VOW OF SILENCE. This was a common belief of the Trappists (Cistercians). As with the Trappists of old, Carthusians simply 'OBSERVE' Silence and eventually desire it.
  
  From the Solemn Investiture of Novices into the Charterhouse of Le Grande Chartreuse; watching Monks getting a hair-cut; the tailor-monk making new habits; the simple act of eating one's meal alone in cell; the Solemn, repetitive chanting of the "BENEDICITE" from the Psalms in a darkened, candlite Church; to Monks enjoying their once-a-week outing on the snow slopes of the French Alps.......all these acts draw us inward and overwhelm our senses and give us a sense and portion of what it is like to be a member of the Strictest Order within Roman Catholicism.
  
  If viewers are interested in further knowledge of the Carthusian Life, they might want to get Nancy Klein Maguire's book: "AN INFINITY OF LITTLE HOURS". Dr. Maguire takes us to St. Hugh's Charterhouse, Parkminister, U.K. and follows 5 young men from 1960 as they enter this Charterhouse to follow their desire to become a Carthusian Monk.
  
  Dr. Maguire's book is a magnificent companion to "INTO GREAT SILENCE'
  
  It is a book that I have read and re-read many times and have not been moved so much since, except when I first read Thomas Merton's Autobiography - "SEVEN STOREY MOUNTAIN".
  
  Buy the DVD! (Into Great Silence)
  Buy the BOOK! (An Infinity of Little Hours)
  
  YOU WILL BE DOUBLY BLESSED!!
  
  Claude King
  
  

• 6) Contemplate this film

  by Elizabeth on July 12 2007
    30+ helpful votes

  I probably experienced this film differently than others because I already had a great interest in the Carthusians and have read quite a bit about them. In a way this was a disadvantage because I was so fascinated to see things I'd read about, that something of the "contemplative" character of the movie was wasted on me. It depends on the alienness and mysteriousness of the Carthusian life, which in a sense you are not really supposed to figure out much about! I will watch it again though and this time just to experience it.
  
  A friend and I watched this in our church's social area and when one of our priests (a elderly Italian religious) walked by and I told him what we were watching he said that he had visited the Carthusians once when he was a young priest, and that although he greatly admired them, he could never live their lifestyle, he would go crazy in under a month! If you read the recent book "An Infinity of Little Hours" you will learn that some would-be Carthusians don't take nearly that long to realize this isn't for them! So one of the most surprising scenes to me was that of a postulant being escorted by singing monks into his new hermitage, which had been lovingly decorated with many little candles. The more you realize what an intense moment this can be, the more you will be affected by how extremely tender and fraternal the scene is. There is more "plot" and happenings in the film than first meets the eye, but it is rightfully obscured relative to the sense of the unceasing rhythm of the monastery life, again part of the film's fascination is its mysteriousness and the difficulty of interpreting what you are seeing, without any explanation. The film attempts to communicate a life of profound prayer which the appropriately-disposed viewer may experience some of the savor of.
  
  There are some luminous glimpses of divine strength and beauty inhabiting human weakness, in men who have in some way BECOME prayer--the blind elderly monk who is briefly interviewed at the end enthralled me. He is like St. John of the Cross' metaphor of the clean window which is able to be made bright by sunlight. Very beautiful.
  
  There's never been a film of life in a Carthusian monastery, and may never be again, and "Into Great Silence" has too many merits for this viewer to find any fault.

• 7) A Prayerful Experience

  by Kevin Murray on August 04 2007
    30+ helpful votes

  5 stars for what it is - a meditative look into the sacred lives of these men, cloistered away from the world, but a community of believers who come together daily for prayer, and sometimes even for a bit of fun. If you watch this film, do so in a quiet place, and commit yourself to remaining in silence, without distraction, for the entire film, so you can experience the solitude and stillness of the monastery. The first hour may be excruciating, as you wait for something to happen, but as you relax into the quiet and feel the presence of God in the faces of the monks, you will get a taste of why people live in this way. What a gift this was - a gift from the monks to us.

• 8) Into Great Silence

  by chris weseloh on May 03 2007
    30+ helpful votes

  Into Great Silence was quite the film. When I first saw the trailer for this film, I thought it looked fascinating. Then, I heard it was a near 3-hour film about monks and almost entirely silent. Needless to say, I felt reserved. Even as a spiritual person I didn't know if I could find myself captivated for that long with that type of a movie. I was wrong. The near 3-hour run time felt more like an average 2-hour film, even with its slow pace and silence. This film was beautiful in two different ways. First of all, many of the shots were fantastic. Groning used natural lighting and found ways to capture many darkly lit scenes in ways that were incredible. Also, his edited shot selection was great. The biggest visual downfall were the many grainy shots. I was disappointed with those and found myself wishing the entire film was shot with a clear lens. Regardless, that was not enough keep me from enjoying this film.
  
  The second beautiful aspect of this film was its spirituality. Knowing that these men have willingly chosen this path for their lives and seeing their passion (although in a very relaxed and focused way) unfold on-screen was powerful. It's a life I know I could never lead, but I have respect for those who can. I can not honestly recommend this movie to everyone. I think it will take a certain kind of film fan to enjoy this movie. Keep in mind that it's a slow-paced, very quiet film before seeing it. But also note that the visuals and spiritual aspects are well worth watching. This is my favorite film of 2007 thus far.

• 9) Appropriately named

  by Jeffrey A. Thompson on July 27 2007
    30+ helpful votes

  The movie is an unique experience. I'm glad I saw it in a small theater. I'm not sure how it would play at home on a DVD. The movie is slow and meditative. Any distraction would tend to remove one from the experience. In the theater, people eating their popcorn, shuffling their feet, or even moving around, were major distractions. The audience wasn't intentionally rude, but the meditative silence of the movie pulls one into the movie and other sounds bring you back into reality.
  
  It doesn't really cover the lives of the monks, but rather gives glimpses into certain aspects of their lives. You have a far better idea of the rhythm of their lives, but not really a better idea of how they live or why they live that way. I see the attraction of the focused lifestyle, but year after year. Wow. The movie is hard to describe. The movie consists of a collection of different snapshots of the lives of the monks, I think using the rhythm of the prayer times and the seasons to pull the snapshots all together. There isn't a narrative thread. The director interviews a blind monk at the end and that does help to put into perspective the lives of the monks. They are pursuing happiness in God through disciplining their lives in silence and solitude. A good scene is the monks horsing around in the snow. Another good scene is the good-hearted debate about the hand washing. The scenes made them more human, more accessible to me.
  
  I'm not sure if I can recommend the movie. I don't know if I would call it a enjoyable experience. I'm glad I watched it and it is a movie I'll remember. However, it is a very beautiful, very long, and very slow movie. Only a few, motivated people would like the movie. The movie made me reflect on my own life and my pursuit of God so it has very good results.

• 10) Into Great Silence - A Sense of the Sacred

  by K. Paul on May 29 2007
    20+ helpful votes

  I was totally transported by the beauty of this film and the profundity of its message and was not bored for one second. In contrast, coming out of the film I felt bombarded by the ugliness of our modern surroundings, the visual vulgarity, mind-numbing noise, and frenetic agitation all around. I wished to be back in the film's ambience of the sacred.
  
  It helps to have a sense of the sacred to appreciate this film. If you are looking for action, even if it's only the monks' "inner" struggle, pick another movie. This one is about success on the spiritual path not failure, and measure of success in the monastery is different from that in the world. These men entered the order with a purpose, to seek the great Peace, and they have found it. One has only to look at their faces, presented with stark directness to know this. Yes, we could be told of all the struggles they faced and the joys they knew, but it is not the purpose of this film to expose a roller coaster of emotions that we can imagine, but to show the extraordinary peace we cannot imagine, and it does this brilliantly with its beautiful camera work and its stately and dignified pace.
  
  Some want to know what these men are thinking. Perhaps they are thinking about God, and their thoughts of God need not be complex to be profound, for the simple utterance of His name can contain all other prayers. This connection of silence with the search for God is expressed by the most diverse spiritual authorities from Black Elk - "for is not silence the very voice of the Great Spirit?", to Jili - "He who speaks becomes silent before the Divine Essence", To St. John of the Cross - "One word spake the Father, which Word was His Son, and this Word He speaks ever in eternal silence, and in silence must it be heard by the soul".
  
  It is hoped that the viewers of this film will look past the need to be entertained and open themselves to what this film has to teach us. I for one am very grateful to those that produced it and for those who so generously allowed us entrance to this sacred world.

• 11) Enriching the "Into Great Silence" film experience

  by Thomas G. Cody on July 08 2007
    20+ helpful votes

  The visual imagery of "Into Great Silence" is arresting. Its silence is reverential and eloquent. Gronig succeed in combining the best of modern cinematography with the authenticity of the old silent film classics. The film experience can be enhanced by reading Nancy Klein Maguire's "An Infinity of Little Hours". In a sense, Maguire's book is a libretto for the film. Where the film is stark and somber, "An Infinity of Little Hours" is warm and lively. Where the film takes us to another world, the book brings members of the western world's oldest, continuing monastic order into the context of our daily lives.

• 12) INTO GREAT SILENCE

  by Prasenjit Chaudhuri on July 01 2007
    20+ helpful votes

  Filmmaker Philip Groning spent six months living among the monks of the Grand Chartreuse Charterhouse in the French Alps for his documentary "Into Great Silence."
  
  I went into the film with a strong curiosity about the life of the Carthusian monks and was treated to an up-close-and-personal look at their lives across four seasons spanning a one year cycle.
  
  I am told the film-maker was only allowed to bring himself - which meant he was The Director, The Cinematographer, The Lighting Technician and The Editor. To make it even harder, there was no lighting allowed inside the monasteries and the filmmaker was at no time to cause any disruption to the ritualistic cycle of the monks daily life. You will notice extremely "grainy" (ie low resolution) sequences in some that were filmd in portions of the monastery with little natural light.
  
  Certainly a film best watched on screen (than on DVD) if you wish to feel the walls of the monastry and smell the cold air outside in the courtyard where a near 70-year old semi-blind monk chops wood to stock up for winter.
  
  For those keenly aware that they came to watch a documentary film(not a staged re-creation) that waited 16 years before filming was approved, and the fact that the filming itself was carried out in extremely difficult technical circumstances, this will be a rewarding experience. Philip Groening appears to have attempted to use all available footage to tell the whole story, and unfortunately stretched the film duration beyond 3 hours - a litle too long to sit patiently and watch. Did I mention the monks have a vow of silence inside the monastery the whole year, except for a few days?. The silence on the screen is interrupted only by sounds of footfalls, chopping or sawing of wood, and sometimes you will even find yourself enjoying the mere sound of utensils being washed for the next meal, a relief from the deafening silence. There are ofcourse several scenes of chanting in the chapel, something he monks do every few hours day and night, which meant they slept barely a few hours at a time before they woke up and went about their assigned routines.
  
  The overall feel of the creates a strongly claustrophobic feeling if you find yourself getting absorbed into the film. A scene showing the process of acceptance of new monks into the Order almost made me feel first hand the massive sacrifice and commitment two youngsters going through the acceptance ritual, were about to make.
  
  All in all, this film was a unique documentary filmed in the most unusual circumstances and certainly a must-see if only to peek into the lives of a set of people who have voluntarily given up everything that defines life for us, and happily living that existence almost from early life till death. These are extraordinary men living an extraordinarily disciplined lives in dedication to their Order.

• 13) Into Great Silence

  by M. Stanley on August 21 2007
    20+ helpful votes

  This is the most moving and beautiful film I have ever had the pleasure of viewing! It is an encouragement to anyone who understand the need for lives dedicated to prayer for the soul and salvation of the world. Thanks be to God for holy men and women who love and support the people of the world through prayer and fasting!

• 14) This movie is a taste of the "real thing."

  by B. Mason on May 26 2007
    20+ helpful votes

  I saw this movie in a theater a few weeks ago and have ordered the DVD set so that I can get it when it first comes out.
  
  Years ago I spent a year and a half in an American Zen Monestary, watching this movie made me want to sell my house and go back to the quiet and timelessness of a meditative life. Other reviewers have complained that this movie is boring or should have contained more interviews with monks, more action. However I think that the movie is perfect the way it is. Meditative life is a direct experience deep quiet. Talking about it isn't the experience. Sitting in a movie theater in silence watching dust motes float in a beam of light allows us to have a little taste of the experience. By the end of the movie I was breathing deeply in a smooth, slow rythym and feeling both peace and joy.
  
  Thank you Philip Groning

• 15) Exquisite

  by A. Bormes on June 20 2007
    10+ helpful votes

  The experience of this movie was its own silent retreat. So often we neglect silence, we neglect prayer. What a beautiful reminder to enter prayer - and to enter prayer deeply. When I saw this film, I took my friend's fifth and seventh grade girls with me. They loved the film as well and we spent the next hour or so talking about it. This film is exquisite!

• 16) Sounds of Serenity

  by Rocky Raccoon on November 09 2007
    10+ helpful votes

  I must warn you in advance, `Into Great Silence' is not everyone's movie. Exquisitely shot and presented, this documentary film, very deliberately shows the rhythm and repetition of life of the monks at The Monastery of the Grande Chartreuse. At the movie's end there are two revelations worth sharing: Filmmaker Philip Gröning asked to film the community back in 1984, but had to wait sixteen years to have his wish fulfilled. Much of the monks' lives are that deliberate as well. The other should be of no surprise, the Carthusian community is among the most "ascetic" (austere, "strict on self-discipline") monasteries in the world.
  
  Although slow in presentation, gorgeous shots of illuminating sunlight and expansive horizons in the French Alps are worth a look. Time-lapsed cinematography garnishes the change of seasons that mark the seasonal sojourn the film captures. Long, shining shots frame key monks as each tries to look unflinchingly into the camera. The sunlight embellishes the subject matter for a halo effect, mirroring the inner light of every man. Key players include a blind, elderly monk, a gardener, the cook, and two candidates to their order: Etienne, whose writing reveals he is Spanish, and Benjamin who is an émigré from some African country--speaking with an African dialect mixed with French.
  
  Besides great beauty, the movie conveys the life of its focus. We not only see their life, we live it as well. It is like we are with them. We enter into the chapel for prayer or into the church for chant and into their ordinary routine of work, meals, and prayer in each monk's private cell. The music, nature, and sounds of their work play a song on our own hearts as well. Scripture is repeated throughout the documentary and translated into English and German with subtitles displayed on the screen. Some may find this a procedural flaw, but the repetition gives us a first hand experience. It is difficult to watch this film without experiencing some sort of transcendence.
  
  Some of the special moments in their itinerary are special for us as well. When they eat together in the refectory (roughly dining room), recreate in the snow, and have one of those rare moments when they are able to talk together, their silence is framed by its opposite.
  
  Ironically, the movie has a great deal of sound. Just as the camera makes the movie a document of great beauty, the microphone hears many movements. Using good judgment in subject and volume, the film lets us hear the sounds of nature: water, birds, and wind. We also get the movement of the men: rustling habits, men eating, kneeling, and working.
  
  Clocking in at 2:40, people could quibble either way about the timing: It is too time-lapsed or too much, but I believe it is nearly perfect. This wonderful film is one I'd love to own; one that is meant to experience again and again.

• 17) Discipline beyond the norm.

  by S. Georgescu on May 20 2007
    10+ helpful votes

  I was able to view this film in a theater. For those contemplating this DVD set, I would say that it is a very intense experience. Not intense in the usual way of films with all of the hoopla and noise and action, but more in the discovery of what possibly could be going on in the context of each screen shot. I have seen this film reviewed as being not unlike a computer monitor screensaver slidewhow. It is much more than that, but that gives you a general idea.
  Having been in a couple of Benedictine Monastaries myself, I can assure you that those places feel like Country Clubs compared to the setting of the Carthusian Order. I came away with a profound respect for these men who have elected to live their life in prayer and devotion to Our Lord.
  This would be of interest to those who want to know more about those men who have chosen the utmost in devotion to Christ...and in turn, it can possibly lead people to examine the fact that in spite of the pace of their lives, there really is time to pray each and every day.

• 18) See it with your heart

  by larry liberator on June 05 2007
    10+ helpful votes

  Open your brilliant, silent heart and see this film fully as if you were there (in a way, you are.)An unprecedented opportunity to glimpse what life more truly means

• 19) A difficult message for film

  by Larry Colson on October 28 2007
    10+ helpful votes

  The director is trying to use the medium of film to convey a metaphysical understanding of life. Not Easy. He uses various techniques to hopefully focus the viewer's attention on underlying truths. The problem here is the viewer must already be spiritually sensitive to pick up on this. Otherwise, the movie just seems slow, uneventful, and lacking. The slow pace of the movie, its rhythms, and the time consuming shots of individual scenes and items, I think, are meant to make us ponder the fact that there is a Creator and a Sustainer in all things. We are invited to look deeper into the mundane and the obvious. The director wants us to experience the devine essence in all that we are seeing. The purpose of the monks lives is to become increasingly aware of God's presence all around and within them. The goal, if you like, is to walk with God in their daily lives whether they are working in the kitchen or are in prayer. I should think that becoming this aware of God's presence in one's daily life would be ecstatic at times. The monk's sense of self must diminish as his awareness of God's presence increases. These monks humble me. For the right person this is a very beautiful and moving movie. Thank you Phillip Groning for making this work of spiritual art.