July 27th Log

INTO GREAT SILENCE
2007, Philip Groning, France / Switzerland / Germany
1st Viewing, DVD

Into Great Silence is a spiritual experience captured through the contemplative imagery and still silence of ritual. The film was meditatively shot by German filmmaker Philip Groning, who spent six months filming Carthusian monks in a French monastery. The film runs 169 minutes, is essentially without dialogue or a straight narrative, yet it’s beauty lies in the awe-inspiring silence and spiritual journey the film takes you. The film transcends specific religion, instead capturing human devotion and drive at it’s most simple and pure. Through stunning photography, use of lighting and sounds Groning creates a slowly inspirational film of peace and transcendence. Into Great Silence is challenging yet undeniably absorbing to experience.



A MOTHER SHOULD BE LOVED
1934, Yasujiro Ozu, Japan
Repeat Viewing, DVD

A Mother Should Be Loved is more melodramatic material then Ozu’s best work. The story centers around two brothers that are alienated after the older one secretly discovers their widowed mother is really his stepmother. The film is missing the first and last reels (a lot of which are titles), which detailed the joyful routines of family life with the mother, two sons, and the father, who dies of a heart attack. What survives centers around the central story of the two sons. Made during the death of Ozu’s father, A Mother Should Be Loved takes a look into the separation of the family, a theme he would continue to develop throughout his postwar masterpieces. This film is more plot driven and overall not as powerful as his greatest work, but it is an interesting film to see the early developments of his themes and style.

>>> More on A Mother Should Be Loved @ A2P Cinema's Yasujiro Ozu website HERE

>>> The opening moments from the surviving print of A Mother Should Be Loved: