I went into this movie expecting to be mesmerized and left it feeling thoroughly disappointed and annoyed. According to the synopsis, the movie is supposed to show rhythms, the flow of time, the change of seasons, and more. If this is the goal, then it fails badly: Watching the movie, one gets the impression that the seasons at La Grande Chartreuse are winter, spring, early summer, and winter. This is unsurprising since most of the shooting occurred in the spring and summer of 2002, but I still felt cheated when there was no autumn between early summer and winter. As for rhythms, I never really got into the groove because the pacing seemed haphazard; the slow flow of the daily routine of the monks kept getting interrupted by time-lapse shots of sunrises and sunsets that always threw me off (this may be a matter of taste, though).
Other aspects of the movie confirm this general sense of half-bakedness. For instance, we meet two novices who are introduced into the monastery, but we don't find out whether they actually go on to become full members. We see a gardener sowing some seeds, but we don't see the harvest. We see other activities (cooking, sewing garments) in their early stages, but we don't see them come to fruition. The absence of the time of harvest is so pervasive throughout the movie that I'm wondering whether it's intentional. I don't see what purpose this might serve, though.
Finally, I feel that the movie does a disservice to the monks it portrays. They have to stare into the camera a lot, and most of them come across as an insecure, fidgety bunch. Few of them exhibit the sort of serenity you'd expect from someone who's living a life of silent contemplation. I figure that they are merely being self-conscious because they are not used to being on camera, but it still seems to me that the director should have found a way of making them feel at ease.
Summing up, the director took a great idea (a silent meditation on the life of Carthusian monks) and a great opportunity (a filming permit at La Grande Chartreuse), and he botched it. Too bad.
Other aspects of the movie confirm this general sense of half-bakedness. For instance, we meet two novices who are introduced into the monastery, but we don't find out whether they actually go on to become full members. We see a gardener sowing some seeds, but we don't see the harvest. We see other activities (cooking, sewing garments) in their early stages, but we don't see them come to fruition. The absence of the time of harvest is so pervasive throughout the movie that I'm wondering whether it's intentional. I don't see what purpose this might serve, though.
Finally, I feel that the movie does a disservice to the monks it portrays. They have to stare into the camera a lot, and most of them come across as an insecure, fidgety bunch. Few of them exhibit the sort of serenity you'd expect from someone who's living a life of silent contemplation. I figure that they are merely being self-conscious because they are not used to being on camera, but it still seems to me that the director should have found a way of making them feel at ease.
Summing up, the director took a great idea (a silent meditation on the life of Carthusian monks) and a great opportunity (a filming permit at La Grande Chartreuse), and he botched it. Too bad.