In which I try to haul in recent reads and views and listens.
It’s a snow day here, so at the moment little boys are filling the house with sounds of knights and Legos and cars. Some time this afternoon, they’ll be packed up and sent outside for a while with their sister in charge, who might have awakened by then.
(I’ll let her sleep late today – what with her speech and debate meets, she hardly ever gets a weekend morning to crash a little. The state debate meet scheduled for this weekend in Elkhart was postponed, thank goodness, although there is a speech meet here in town she might have to participate in tomorrow, if it’s still on. )
First…well…LOST?
I thought it was pretty good, although I have to expend an awful lot of energy in the viewing trying to piece together alliances and events last seen eight months ago (I missed the review Wednesday night). I think the flash-forward business is ingenious and really breaks open the story. So who are the Oceanic 6? Those who were rescued after making some sort of deal with the proverbial devil, leaving others (not Others) behind?
Next in the “recently viewed” category: The Monastery: Mr. Vig and the Nun.
I think we caught only about the last 45 minutes of this the other night on the Sundance Channel, and I don’t see indications that it will be re-aired any time soon. You can watch the trailer, but I think it misrepresents the film slightly, making it seem like a sort of wacky clash of personalities than it is. There is a bit of comedy to it in that respect, but it actually has a rather mournful core and Mr. Vig, behind his truly strange beard is much more than a cranky old Dane. I really can’t say much more because I think I need to see the first half to really get what was going on, but take this summary:
Mr. Jørgen Laursen Vig is owner of a worn down castle situated in the Danish country side. All his life Mr. Vig has dreamed of turning his castle into a Russian orthodox monastery.
After a visit to Russia negotiating with the Russian patriarchate, a delegation of nuns headed by Sister Amvrosija come to Denmark in order to assess whether Mr. Vig’s castle is fit to serve as a monastery. The nuns approve the castle, but at the same time they demand extensive repairs to it. When the nuns leave again for Russia, Mr. Vig sets out to do the repairs all by himself.
The following summer sister Amvrosija and the other nuns return and Mr. Vig’s dream seems about to come true. The nuns move into the castle, and slowly they take over the daily work and introduce new routines.
Mr. Vig’s life changes: all his life he has lived by himself with no women around, now he has to share his home with the strong-willed Sister Amvrosija and her sister nuns. And they demand more and more necessary repairs. As a solution to the problem, the Russian patriarchate offers to pay for all future repairs to the castle, but on the condition that Mr. Vig leaves his castle to them by will.
Mr. Vig has serious doubts: should he leave his castle to the Russian church by will and thus carry out his dream of a monastery? Or should he keep his castle to himself and continue his lonely life as a bachelor? Mr. Vig, who has never known love, is facing many conflicts with the apparently difficult Sister Amvrosija, but she does strangely enough not want to leave him and his castle, even if she will be the last and only nun left.
The broader question raised, in this extremely small slice of life, seems to me to be what is the point of monastic life? Why does it exist? Why is it important to us? Mr. Vig, in a way, is all of us – we see the value of this radical way of life and we want it around, but how does it challenge us? What about it do we resist?
I have to say though, I watch all documentaries with a suspicious eye – in this one there were a couple of moments I couldn’t help but think, “Oh yeah, they just happened to have the cameras present and running when that happened.” But you never know. Maybe they did.
More to come…
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