“A beautiful, mesmerizing wonder!” – Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine

“A Delightful Documentary!” – V.A. Musetto, New York Post

“Pernille Rose Gronkjaer’s fantastic little character portrait…with prudent attention paid to aesthetic nuances
(some of the long-shot tableaus are priceless, such as a chorus of nuns singing in squalor).”
– Aaron Hillis, Village Voice

“Vig looks as if he’s just strolled out of a Dreyer film; as for Ambrosija,
this steely sister might eat Deborah Kerr for breakfast and spit out the bones.”
– David Fear, Time Out NY

"An oddly graceful combination of fairy tale and romantic comedy, set in a forgotten corner of the world.
If you took 'Beauty and the Beast' and 'The Honeymooners,' blended them and planted the result in overgrown Danish swampland,
I guess this is what you'd get. Beneath their incessant squabbling, Mr. Vig and the nun fit together in unmistakable fashion."
– Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com

“Affectionate but admirably unsentimental... With his snowy, spade-sharped beard and threadbare scarecrow’s duds,
Vig looks like a character from some blackly comic or angst-ridden 19th-century Scandinavian novel come to life.”
– Leslie Felperin, Variety

“Touches on dreams, fear, love, and death and what’s left after it.” – Adina Bradeanu, Dox Magazine

Mr. Vig is an elderly, deeply eccentric, never-married Dane, living alone in a ramshackle castle; he dreams of donating his homestead to the Russian Orthodox Church to become a monastery. In a long black overcoat, with a shock of unruly white hair, and glasses perched on the tip of his nose, he looks like a character straight out of Dickens. Enter Sister Ambrosija, a remarkably attractive young Russian nun, who arrives with a small entourage and plans to whip the place into shape. A whirlwind of activity (days begin at 5:30 am), she insists upon extensive repairs; Mr. Vig wants Band-Aids where she suggests surgery. Their contest of wills plays out in humorous, offbeat encounters that take unexpected turns as two unlikely people find companionship and common ground. Hauntingly shot, THE MONASTERY is a modern fairytale with timeless roots.

Denmark • 2006 • 84 minutes • In English, Danish & Russian with English subtitles • Koch Lorber Films

Links:

• Official Website
• Scandinavia House Celebration of Danish Cinema