so I finally got around to watching…

… Into Great Silence and now, more then ever, I want to run off to a convent.

… no soundtrack, no commentary, no script, not even a film crew. Just the shots of changing seasons, sunrises and sunsets and the intoning of the monastery bells to mark the passage of time. The silence is interrupted every now and then with the chirping of birds, the mewling of cats, the monks chanting prayers and the sound of turning book pages.

The shots are lingering, water dripping off a roof, a spider in the corner, the candle flickering near the tabernacle, and monks kneeling in prayer. The shots are intimate, close up images of a monks hand while he fingers his rosary, eyelashes lowered over eyes closed in prayer, the shaved head of a monk, and the slight crinkles in the corner of the eyes of a sleeping Carthusian.

… it was like going on retreat without leaving my couch.