No Greater Love

BY OPENING this rigorous, respectful documentary about a Carmelite monastery hidden in London's otherwise trendy Notting Hill, the distributors are perhaps hoping to draw in the crowds who made Into Great Silencea cult hit. With its lengthy shots of divine rain running down worshipful roofs, that film, set among Carthusian monks, came to be used as a devotional tool by many people of faith.

No Greater Lovedoesn't strive so hard for transcendence. Unencumbered by a voiceover, the shadowy wood-stained film restricts itself to medium shots of the nuns at work and discreet interviews with some more forthcoming sisters. Denied newspapers or TV, restricted to just two windows of conversation a day, the nuns exist in a dimension untouched by information overload.

The nuns’ meditations on their faith reveal them to be liberal, surprisingly flexible thinkers. One participant is prepared to accept the possibility that there is no life after death, but consoles herself with the thought that “at least there’ll be nobody there to tell me so.” Another explains that, far from offering an escape from reality, life in the monastery forces nuns to confront the worrying complexities of being alive.

Still, though the monastery is presented as a calm, unthreatening environment, the lack of modern conveniences will surely unnerve more worldly viewers. It is true that, at one surprising point, we see a senior nun operate a computer. The machine is, however, that ancient, Anglepoise-style iMac G4. Positively medieval, sister.