- “Free People. A Journey Inside” takes the viewer on a mesmerizing journey to enclaves of silence and prayer, but above all, on a journey into the interior of the human soul. How much reflection on your own life will be caused by looking at those who live completely differently?
- Thanks to special circumstances, the filmmakers were granted access to twelve monasteries that are normally closed.
- No documentarian has ever before had the opportunity to take a close and in-depth look at the contemplative life of nuns and monks and listen to such sincere testimonies of their lives.
Santos Blanco he did not make a catechetical and clerical film from the front of the “war of the worlds”. It is not a journalistic and militant film that would aim to defend the Catholic Church against “attacks from outside”. “Free. A journey into the interior” is a fundamentalist document in the positive meaning of this negatively connoted word today. It is a voice calling for a return to the foundation of Christianity, which is love. Love for God, but also love for one's neighbor. This is the voice of those who are closest to the foundations of the teachings of the carpenter from Nazareth. This is not a story about representatives of the corporate hierarchy involved in politics, stuffing their coffers with ideological wars typical of the earthly world. The heroes of the Spanish documentary cut themselves off from the noise of the modern materialistic world to hear what is important. “If a person focuses only on material matters throughout his life, how can he find meaning and the desire to experience something spiritual? That's why sometimes we need silence and concentration to ask ourselves about the meaning of our lives,” says one of the monks. How to find silence in a world that is screaming?
It is a document about free people who chose monastic life as mature and experienced people. “Atmospheric, calming and relaxing,” advertises the film's distributor. That's exactly right. Blanco entered Spanish monasteries with cameras that do not allow people from outside the order to enter their walls. Thanks to this, it allows us to feel the atmosphere of this place and understand the need for peace and respite from the overstimulated and chaotic world.
Chaos that does not allow us to stop and look inside ourselves. Does it sound like an advertisement for coaching and meditation techniques that are so eagerly used by residents of big cities, who often ridicule “backward Catholics”? This film is about this kind of calm and meditation. However, at the center of “looking into oneself” is not only the human “I”, egotism and narcissism. God is at the center. Blanco's interlocutors came to the order from various places. There is an older woman who raised four children and only after fulfilling her family obligations did she choose her own path to fulfillment. There is a man once immersed in carnal hedonism, which led him to the very center of darkness. There are those who, having more and more money and material goods, were unable to fill the void in their hearts, which was finally filled with a conversation with God. Conversation in silence and in harmony with nature, the garden given to us by God. All this resonates because the filmmakers do not give us another reportage with talking heads, but visually adapt to the rhythm of life in the monastery. Carlos de la Rosa's cinematography and Blanco's subtle narration emphasize the mystique of the world into which they have been let.
Is this the world of those who have escaped reality for their own convenience? This is how monks who are closed in walls in front of the whole world are often perceived. However, the heroes of this document argue that their path is neither better nor worse than the path of those who pursue family life, work in corporations or in any other type of symbiosis with the fast-paced world. They simply believe that complete happiness is achieved by giving, not by receiving. Giving love and lighting the way for others. “We are a lighthouse,” they say. It is up to us whether we want to use this light. Is each of them aware of his true essence? Probably not, because every religious community also attracts very lost people who are looking for a very personal escape. Jerzy Stuhr created such a character in “Weather for Tomorrow”, where the main character did not see the difference between, to paraphrase Fr. Jan Kaczkowski, “waving his paws” for the Catholic community and Hare Krishna. What mattered was your own ego, not the Truth.
“Free. A journey into the interior” it's a film about free people. Not in the sense of freedom from, but rather freedom to. They are free because they have free will, given to them (us) by God. Free will is the greatest and greatest gift we can receive. We can tell God that we don't want him. We can reject it and turn our heads away from it. We have been informed of the consequences, but we have the right to do it. I was attracted to Christianity because, in its foundations, it is the most libertarian religion. What other monotheistic religion allows God to say “fuck off”? But they said the opposite.
However, they chose symbiosis with God. They chose a contemplative conversation with him and meditation, which is in fact very fashionable today. However, more and more Westerners choose meditation immersed in Eastern or neo-pagan beliefs. Do they differ in form (I won't go into theological issues) from what monks do? It is no different, and that is why “Free People. A Journey to the Interior” can also reach viewers who are far from Christian perception. What unites us all is that we are tired of the speed of a world that is descending into increasingly uncontrolled chaos. Moral, ethical, but also political and informational chaos. The glare that rules today's world distracts us and prevents us from focusing on what is most important. They stopped and encourage us to do the same. We are free, so we can accept their invitation. Or reject it, but a journey inside is necessary for each of us.
7/10
“Free. A journey into the interior”, dir. Santos Blanco, Spain 2023, distributor: Rafael, cinema premiere: May 31, 2024.