Young director Cecile Mavet has managed something remarkable in her quiet and intensely beautiful short film, L’Appel (The Calling). In twenty minutes, Mavet provides a vignette of a young woman grappling with the profound personal choice of whether to abandon a career in dance (not to mention the entirety of what we take to be a “fulfilling” life) to join an order of nuns in Belgium. What seems like a contrived setting to tease out the protagonist’s spiritual struggle is actually an echo of a deeply modern enterprise: the search for philosophical meaning and spiritual fulfillment in a disenchanted world. It is a story of personal freedom and empowerment, paradoxically situated in what much of contemporary society would consider to be the most restrictive and least individualistic cultural niche.

The historical shift away from a mode of human existence that is deeply imbued with spiritual meaning is the subject of the philosopher Charles Taylor’s seminal work, A Secular Age. Taylor is himself a Catholic, but his work is not a polemic against modern atheism or secularism. Nevertheless, one feels the undercurrent throughout the historical narrative that something about our contemporary existence is lacking, specifically: the availability of an unquestioned belief in God and the pervasiveness of divine influence in the material world as well as one’s social connections. Since our lives have segmented into the “public” non-spiritual modes and the “private” mode of worship and belief, the spiritual mode has necessarily moved to a back-up role. We exist in a secular world in which room has to be carved out for religious belief. Whether or not this development is beneficial to us is unimportant. An intricate change has occurred in Western thought, and we cannot help but grapple with its consequences.

Mavet treats this dilemma explicitly, but does so within the scope of an individual struggling to define her life and satisfy competing desires. Taylor draws a distinction between lay and monastic life in pre-Renaissance Europe along the lines of time: profane and higher time. The very existence of two modes of time is difficult for us moderns to contemplate. Taylor himself toils to define the precise relation of higher time to profane time: “surrounded by, penetrated by; it is hard to find the right words here.” Whatever the relationship, moving into higher time is “an ascent into the unchanging.” In the Middle Ages, like now, joining a monastery is a way to immerse yourself completely in this eternal time. One gets a sense of this removal from the documentary Into Great Silence by Philip Groning, whose request of a Carthusian monastery to let him film the monks in their daily ritual was only answered after 16 years of consideration.

L’Appel is intended as an exploration of the meaning of the monastic commitment in dramatic form. The film opens with the protagonist, Anna, hanging sheets to dry on a clothesline — a familiar act that is quite archaic. The aura of simplicity and nostalgia continues throughout the film. The vestments of the convent are simple and modest, and certainly belong to a different time. The convent itself feels unchanged through many centuries. One gets the sense that entering the convent (Anna is debating whether or not to take her vows) is not born so much from a yearning from the past, as a desire to be taken out of time entirely. This is not an unfamiliar impulse- we often feel enslaved by the trapping of modernity, the ostensible comforts and freedoms allowed by technology. In contrast to the cruel and cowardly subject of Into Into The Wild, Anna’s desire for this life is pure and unmuddled by anger.¹

The convent does seem to be the perfect realization of the life devoted to reclaiming the spiritual mode. The Sisters are convivial, and share jokes amongst themselves about past suitors and the difficult process of taking vows. The powerful sense of community and shared love between the Sisters is in rather stark contrast to the Carthusian monks. An inductee to their order wouldn’t feel as if she had severed all social bonds. Contrast is provided to the striving and uncaring outside “modern” world in the form of Anna’s mother. During a visit to the convent, the mother hectors Anna over her inclination to take her vows, and baits her with a story about how Anna’s sister has given birth.² It is somewhat surprising to hear the nuns speak to frankly about the difficult choice of joining a monastic order, while the visitor from the “free” world outside cannot conceive of an alternative to her lifestyle. Mavet shows us how our boundless freedom has bound us to a proscribed existence.

Still from L'Appel. Courtesy of Un poing c'est court Film Festival.

Mavet also deftly deals with the audience’s likely expectation that Anna is foregoing a great deal of freedom by deciding to join the convent. Anna stands outside of both the dogma of the church she is joining and her mother’s expectations. Despite the film’s suggestion that she is struggling with the choice of pursuing ballet versus taking the vows, the film ends with Anna transforming from a kneeling supplicant before the altar into a creature of ecstatic movement. She reaches everything — body and spirit. The cloister of the convent is not a prison, but the venue in which Anna will thrive. A hint of the oppression of the outside world comes from the mother’s report that Anna’s niece will be named “Moira,” after one of the Fates of Greek mythology. The temporal path of having a career and family is fated, but the life of abstinence and devotion is the product of free will.

This is an unfashionable attitude in filmmaking. Generally, films that expose the flaws and prejudices of modern life do so from a nihilistic standpoint. In Todd Solondz’s Palindromes, the protagonist Aviva is played by ten different actors of various races and genders and ages- personal identity is essentially meaningless, and the bildungsroman is hollowed out of any meaning. Conversely, Andrei Rublev (the only comparable film about monasticism that comes to mind) is about a historical figure who is pivotal to Russian history, not an “everywoman” whose existential struggle mirrors out own.

Mavet’s cleverness in making the convent seem like a palatable option comes across in two ways. First, Anna’s conflict with her mother will resonate with practically everyone. We all face the difficulty in becoming an adult that we disagree with the choices our parents have made for us, and that we may know better than they what to make of our lives. We may also even see our parents, like Anna seems to, as selfish and mean.³ The personal transformation that Anna is undergoing is analogous to coming out of the closet. She has a new identity, which no one can talk her out of, and which furthermore will largely define her existence in the future. Like the woman who becomes aware of her homosexuality, Anna struggles with the questions of identity — Is it a choice? Is it a calling?

The film also functions as a personal catharsis for the director, and the audience can relate to the act of seeing the film as an analogue for joining a convent. Mavet talked to me about the impact of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Sculpting in Time on her vision for her film. L’Appel came out of a stressful period in Mavet’s life. But as Tarkovsky explains, movies can be the cure for our spiritual ailments. They are tickets to a realm of emotion. We are removed by films from our profane time. L’Appel like its subject, seeks to enter eternal time.

1. The question of how selfish is this act — removing oneself from mainstream society and one’s family — is an interesting ethical tangle. But Anna, unlike Christopher McCandless, does not act out of anger or abandon her family. This variety of existential quest is much easier to laud as genuine and heroic
2. Anna’s unnamed mother also looks very odd and out-of-place in the convent, dressed in her clothes and make-up. She is a person we would not look at twice on the street, but the surroundings of the convent give us a glimpse at how silly our conventions may appear from the outside.
3. Anna’s mother brings to mind the step-father in Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander, though with the neat inversion of the relationship of Church initiate to child. Perhaps this perceived similarity is heightened by the steady, contemplative cinematography that is highly reminiscent of Bergman. In any case, the message that our parents can hurt us emotionally is clear.

One Grand Army Plaza, via flickr

Much has been made lately of our new luxury buildings clad entirely in glass. In a city as densely populated as New York, each new transparency evokes a stack of terrariums: Eames chairs, antique ceramics, mixed-media paintings, and the occupants themselves are all offered for our consideration. Viewed by the passerby, the small, silent vignettes of the lives on display are as conspicuous as the luxury possessions that hold court in their absence.

In the past, residential buildings communicated the privilege within by swaddling their facades in ornamental detail, often channeling the history of an absent aristocracy. Manhattan’s Ansonia and Dakota buildings invoke a Parisian and a North German style, respectively. The towers lining Park Avenue and the white brick buildings smattering the Upper East Side, though not as ornate, rely on their facades to reinforce the status of their location. These opaque exteriors remind the public that its inhabitants are well-to-do, and are thus shielded from the unwashed masses flowing past. If these edifices tend to look somewhat like castles, it is hardly an accident.

The building known as On Prospect Park, at 1 Grand Army Plaza, inverts the traditional exclusion of the street from the living spaces of its inhabitants. The building does not sit on the park, as it’s name implies, but rather catty-corner to the main entrance, across the street from the Brooklyn Public Library. Walking along Eastern parkway, it is impossible not to gaze through the wall of glass windows into any number of the apartments housed within. Even by the standards of the day, On Prospect Park provides the would-be voyeur with a view of unprecedented acuity. Here, certainly, is the contemporary domain of the wealthy: who else could afford such a remarkable building? And who else would possess such confidence in their material prizes to offer their image to the world?

Raphael Zollinger, Welcome, 2005 via boodely

The building has recently inverted another trapping of old money. Immediately to the right of the entry foyer is a room containing several sculptures by Raphael Zollinger. The space appears to be a tightly-packed gallery, but it in fact serves as a sculpture garden for building residents. ‘Sculpture garden’ brings to mind public parks where artworks are arrayed for collective enjoyment, though it often signifies the opposite, indicating private places of repose found within the gilded manses of the very rich. In the past, such gardens were a decadence found only in homes of those rich enough to afford the requisite space, and educated enough to appreciate the beauty of fine art. Thus the sense of privacy and exclusion, where the gentleman can enjoy his material gains apart from the less well-appointed outside world.

One Grand Army Plaza’s sculpture garden is, like the rest of its contents, viewable from the street. A short concrete planter prevents one from walking directly up to the glass wall, but the details of the sculptures are highly visible. The room is called Gallery @ 1 GAP, and is curated by an “art committee” composed of building residents. The object of the sculpture garden, in keeping with the mission of the building as a whole, is not seclusion, but the presentation of private possessions to the outside world. The gallery is closed to the public. Interested persons are politely rebuffed by the doormen, and given a brochure about the art that they may read on the sidewalk while they contemplate the works. One of the most visible of these is a giant neon sign that spells “Welcome” in cursive.

While it is probably unfair to impugn the artist for the placement of the work, it is certainly fine to question the decision-making of the dystopian-sounding “Art Committee.” But certain sins may be beyond their understanding. Another of Zollinger’s prominent pieces is a series of six figures, life-size and male, kneeling on the floor of the gallery. Their hands are crossed behind their backs, possibly bound. The figures’ heads lean forward, creating the impression of prisoners awaiting execution in some foreign conflict. (A final scene of Ang Lee’s incomparable Lust, Caution comes to mind.) Each figure is completely stone-faced and identical, offering comment, perhaps, on the facelessness of those suffering the savageries of war. Scrubbed of any human identity by a sanitizing media, the six betray the contented apathy of the Western public.

The sculpture aims, undeniably, at subversion, highlighting its bizarre location in a private sculpture garden. Instead of statues of Apollo and Artemis, the gallery contains a sharp rebuke of privilege and the aloofness of the affluent class. The space is transformed from a cloister to a kind of confessional, where one’s sins are depicted in sculpture. One wonders if the meaning of the sculpture is irrelevant now; it’s reinforcement of privilege accomplished simply by being “art.” The most honest players in this drama are the brokers and developers, who acknowledge openly that the gallery is being used as cultural capital, designed explicitly to sell more apartments.

I walk past Gallery @ 1 GAP several times a week on my way to Prospect Park. Aside from a stray Pomeranian sniffing around, I have not seen a single living thing in the space since it opened. Perhaps the kneeling figures, about to meet their demise, do not make the residents feel particularly welcome. Or maybe it was never about those on the inside in the first place.