Customer Reviews

The Monastery: Mr Vig & The Nun

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

How do you turn an old castle with a leaking roof and adorned with Buddhist symbols into a Russian Orthodox monastery? In this documentary, filmed in Denmark, we follow eccentric 82 year old Mr. Vig as he struggles with that question.

Mr. Vig, the owner of the Hesbjerg castle on Fyn Island, petitioned the Russian Orthodox church to send nuns and establish a monastery at his castle. He also has firm ideas on how to do things which bring him in conflict with nun Amvrosija who leads the Russian group. The question here is can we change to accomplish something greater than us? This documentary covers 5 years of Mr. Vig's life and we are left to admire the patience and kindness of both the film maker and nun Amvrosija. And they both showed a good sense of humor.

Warning: this is a beautifully-filmed, super-slow documentary that asks for 85 minutes of quiet time and viewer's immersion into the story. If you've seen the Russian film "Ostrov" and like it, you'll like this too.

'The Monastery' was really a wonderful film. I was surprised by the documentary style format, for some reason, I was expecting it to have been more narrative in style; but I quite enjoyed the way it was presented. From my point of view as an Orthodox Christian, I was a little disappointed in the way some of the religious aspects of the film were covered, much too little coverage of some very important topics to the story. On the other hand, the unfolding story of the conflict and friendship between Mr. Vig and the Nun was wonderful, and was a very good object lesson in Christian conflict resolution. I would recommend this film for anyone who is interested in the Orthodox Faith.

This newly released film is a story of the power of faith and its degree of transformation. An old recluse decides to donate his run-down estate (now worth over a million dollars) to the Russian Orthodox Church to create a monastery. The story depicts the five years in which Mr. Vig, the owner works with a nun to transform his home into the monastery. Their interaction is the gist of the story. The story is deeply moving especially because it is filmed on location. Having been to Russia twice I found this film to be a message of the importance of valuing our faith.

This is one of those rare documentary films that surely took an unexpected twist -- deftly captured by an obviously very sensitive and insightful film producer. It probably did start out as a documentary about an eccentric old fellow donating a dilapidated Danish manor house to a "foreign" church, but it became something very different.

The real dilapidated house is Mr. Vig's noble old soul. An academic and former cleric, in a way, he lost much of his faith along the way. One suspects his less than happy relations with others, especially women, in his earlier years had something to do with that. With the help of a determined nun, pious, strong willed, tenacious, and sensible, Mr. Vig realizes a dream of establishing a Monastery, and the dream becomes a reality and his own pathway to salvation.

In his struggle with a nun, himself, his past, and his own doubts, he finds faith, and lives faith again. The scene of him and the nun walking in a holy procession around their embryonic convent is a powerful expression of Mr. Vig's spiritual rebirth. Yes, the two protagonists argue, endure each other, work together, come to love one another dearly, and in the end, they walk together in faith.

Through a denomination itself only recovering from decades of suffering, the soul of a fine old fellow, whose faith had been sorely diminished over time, was given a breath of life again -- just like his crumbling house which is now priceless in a sense because it has been transformed into something incomparably more valuable than an investment property. It is a remarkable story of spiritual rebirth against the odds.

What a wonderful story, and a wonderful surprise it must have been for the film makers. And to think, it was a documentary. What does carefully scripted drama have that real life doesn't easily best?

Very interesting movie - you can't tell whether this is fiction or non fiction. I enjoyed watching it more than once. Shows the humility and patience of a monastic dealing with an old man looking for repentance.

I was deeply moved by this film and felt privileged to watch it. I see of lot of documentaries but this stands out as unforgettable. It's an incredible story that just keeps rippling across the imagination. How did she ever make it? What muse was hovering over the project to allow it to be captured on film? Such an elegant and heart-felt film, I was riveted.

I am not exactly sure about the point of this documentary, about the establishing of a Russian monastery in Denmark by an older, and very eccentric, landowner. The film itself, as a work of documentation, I feel leaves much to be desired. It is incomplete. Perhaps other viewers will find this to be part of its charm. For me, I felt it was part of its annoyance.

In the end it was a study of a man who has always played it safe and never risked loving anyone, raised by an abusive father and submissive but loving mother. His obsession with outward physical traits (noses and ears) kept him from dating, and so he was a priest (RC Protestant?) and a librarian. In spite of his general dislike of humanity, he still wants to establish some sort of permanent tribute in the world with the founding of a monastery. That said, even almost against himself it seems, he still gives the nuns this amazing castle and to his credit his dream was fulfilled.

In the end I was left feeling very sorry for him (may his memory be eternal), loving the strong-willed but correct Mother Amvrosia and praying to God that I would live my life a little nicer and thoughtfully. I am also left wondering what it is exactly that turns a person into a misanthrope. Small degrees of turning away from love, I suppose.

As a note, a reader thought I was too judgemental here, so I want to post my reply here for you in case you do not read the comments section: "It is nice to see interest, either way, since it is a film worth watching. However, I am not sure where you read me passing judgment upon Mr. Vig. If I am not mistaken, and correct me where I am wrong, eveything I wrote is exactly what he says in the film about himself. If it is wrong to accurately summarize the content of a film in my own review of the film, including my reaction to it, then i guess i misunderstand the point of reviewing anything. Should I gloss over the main character traits of the main character in the story? Perhaps you feel uncomfrotable viewing with honesty the tortured life of Mr. Vig. Perhaps not. Only God knows his end, and that is only between the two of them, but we can only go with what the film, and he himself, presents to us. This ambiguity toward love and care on Mr. Vig's part, even his resistance to it, is what is haunting to me and what serves as a warning, not any sort of stone casting. May his memory be eternal."

I'm so happy to have stumbled onto this film.

It's not much of a story. An elderly man wants to donate his large home to the Russian Orthodox Church so that it may be used as a monastery. He wants to do this so that he has done something 'enduring' with his life. Meanwhile the Church has sent a couple nuns to check the place out before agreeing to accept the property. They point out some expensive repairs that need to be made (leaky roof, inadequate furnace). It's all quite reasonable.

But this old fellow is such a defeatist about everything. He is admirably open and honest, but he has such an "all is lost" attitude. Although he inadvertantly brings cheer to those of us watching him, I don't think he himself smiled once during the entire film. He's quite a character.

Although the film is marketed as collision between strong personalities, no anger is ever expressed. Both the nun and the old man are always civil with each other. Indeed they seem to have a fondness for each other.

I felt happier after watching this gentle film. That alone is worth at least 4 stars.

Director Pernille Rose Gronkjaer's "The Monastery" is a curious film. Ostensibly, it's the story of the conflict between an octogenarian (Mr. Vig) whose dream of transforming his castle into a monastery turns stale when the dream meets reality in the form of Sister Ambrosija. But the documentary is too impressionistic to let the viewer enter into the conflict on more than a superficial level. While we learn a bit about Mr. Vig, Sister Ambrosija remains a total mystery. We know nothing about her background nor her dreams. She's Vig's bete noire, but an almost totally anonymous one. We also come to know almost nothing about the documentary's "star," the castle itself. Although we accompany Mr. Vig through various parts of the huge structure--the basement, the attic, a couple of rooms--we never get a good feel for the castle as a whole. So both human and architectural characters are underdeveloped.

Okay. So perhaps we have to look for a less ostensible, deeper point to the film. Could director Gronkjaer's purpose be to suggest that even our most fondly held dreams fall short when we try to achieve them? Is the point that many of us, like Mr. Vig, are capable of sacrifice only up to a certain point, and that beyond that we'll cling tenaciously to physical and emotional possessions? Is the film trying to suggest that institutionalized religion (in this case Russian Orthodoxy) is necessarily hierarchical and bound to rankle individualists/loners like Mr. Vig? I dunno. The film is no more clear in a presentation of a deep, underlying theme than in its portrait of Mr. Vig and Sister Ambrosija.

Ultimately, then, what we have in "The Monastery" is a sketch of an eccentric curmudgeon whose hope to found a spiritual retreat spirals into conflict. By the end of the film, Mr. Vig is petulantly shouting at Sister Ambrosija: "You ruin everything!", and Sister Ambrosija patronizingly, mockingly replying: "Why are you crying, Mr. Vig?" But, not surprisingly, the intensity of their dislike for one another is unexpected and contextless. One moment they're mildly annoying one another, and the next they're screaming at one another. Interesting impressions, granted. But no coherence.

What a pity.