FLORENCE – “The great silence”, in a time of noisily sonorous cinema, which fills and overflows everything, with its two and 40 hours of silence had described and “brought” us into the life of the Carthusian friars in the Grande Chartreuse in the French Alps, while offering a cinematic experience very different from what today’s fast-paced and anxious audiences are used to. “An infinite place”, a documentary film by Media Solutions e Giovanna M. Carliwritten together with Alessio Venturini for the direction of Luigi M. of Elba, instead allows, in just under an hour, everything that encompasses the Certosa complex, on the top of Monte Acuto, also called “Monte Santo”, a conical hill located near Galluzzo, south of Florence. In what is meant to be the story of a “dream of immortality of men who defied time and space”. The Certosa was in fact designed to house 12 very strictly cloistered father monks – up to 18 following an expansion of the main cloister – and some lay brothers, as can be seen from the number of cells present throughout the structure. The cloistered monks had a rather large cell, since here they had to spend almost all of their life, in meditation, prayer and study, under the rule of silence. And the day after tomorrow, Saturday 17 December, it will be possible to really admire this infinite place, thanks to the national premiere of the docufilm soon to be released on Italian and European platforms. With a fil rouge inextricably linking it to “The Great Silence”, to what if the monks are no longer here for some time.
In fact, after more than 30 years in the television broadcast service sector, Media Soluzioni wanted to try to produce an entirely documentary and, as they explain, the Certosa di Firenze “was an attractive subject to try their hand at. A place that is always present in the city, abandoned for years but never forgotten. The idea of an old collaborator/friend of ours, Giovanna M. Carli meant that the right synergies were created to be able to start giving substance to a co-production. Thus began a long phase of historical research, which involved the State Archives of Florence, the Superintendency and various scientific consultants from the Italian art world”. Filming began in the winter of 2018 and lasted until Christmas 2021: three years. Why three years? First of all for a choice linked to the direction, which wanted to tell the changing of the place with the passing of the seasons. Second, the lack of any budget which “forced us to shoot in the “snippets” of time, i.e. when we professional crews weren’t engaged in other “paid” productions, as we all provided our work free of charge ”. Third, the Covid-19. “Despite everything, we never gave up and, even though they had excluded us (by 1.5 points) from the funding calls for two Film Commissions, even though we hadn’t found the time to look for sponsors, even though one of the producers had been hospitalized for a month with the whole family precisely because of the Covid, we managed to complete our production. A documentary that is the result of great sacrifices, but also of great will and love for storytelling through images. Despite adversity, we have never forgotten the subject of our story, an infinite place that made us discover and bring out the best in each of us, as it did with the great characters who have passed through here in 700 years of history” .
A deafening silence is the first sensation one gets upon entering the Certosa di Firenze. The place shows, through the testimonies of a life of simplicity and peace, the balance between body and spirit. Built almost 700 years ago, then enlarged and enriched, it survived the bombings of the wars and with the overbuilding of the 70s it was almost incorporated into the city of Florence. Pontormo and Bronzino stayed here during the plague, Napoleon and various Popes, heads of state and intellectuals. Refuge and place of choice for artists, intellectuals and politicians. Le Corbusier will be inspired for the structure of the Unitè d’habitation by observing the cells of the monks. The art gallery, the churches, the frescoes by Pontormo, the cloisters and the well attributed to Michelangelo, give the Certosa a charm and a sense of peace, in one of the symbolic places of art and spirituality in Tuscany.
In short, for 700 years the place has discreetly shown its enormous presence: “Its greatness is precisely the leitmotif of our story where the lives of the characters who have passed from here intertwine, following a temporal path. These are famous people, but also simple friars and ordinary people whom the Certosa has changed or helped to change spiritually. But how could all this happen? The infinity of space and its closure to the outside world have greatly contributed to shaping the characters that have followed each other”.
In the cinema of reality, one of the narrative formulas of montage, almost obligatory, is the cut or more commonly from the English, cut, which indicates the transition from one image to another, from one scene to another in real time and is often “helped” by a noise from the scene itself. A closing of a door, a ringing of a bell, a shot and so on. And everything happens at the same time. “In our narration of reality, on the other hand – they add – we have introduced the fade, typical of the passage of time or its dilation. A technical/narrative choice with which we wanted to exaggerate the slowness, calm, tranquillity, synonyms of space. It is not loud noises that assist image changes but small noises. The tolling of the bell for the time, the crackling of a candle, the cicadas in summer and the wind and rain in winter, but also a dog barking in the distance and footsteps imprinted on the snow by who knows who. Not noises, therefore, but short echoes that break a silence which, instead, the space amplifies. The use of Slow Motion marks the sense of the slow passage of time. The footage reveals the smallest details of the numerous works of the Certosa often invisible to the ordinary visitor. The aerial views will then offer an absolutely new point of view. Ample spaces of the story, however, are left only to images and original music, which was composed and performed for the occasion by the musician Mary Socci. The narrative voice, warm and discreet, of the actor Sandro Lombardi, integrates the interventions of the great experts of the Certosa and of Italian art. A beautiful, harmonious, pleasant and imposing building, built by man but in which, today, there is no human presence. The spectator will see these places, many of which have never been seen before, change in appearance, light and shape during the course of the day and over the seasons”. A truly infinite place.