Between Jericho and the Dead Sea, in a landscape of salt, dust and heat haze, the monastery of Saint Gerasimos — Deir Hijleh — appears as an improbable enclave: white walls, blue domes, a courtyard of palms and bougainvillea, and cool interiors hung with icons. This is desert monasticism in its oldest form, the tradition that drew hermits and communities into the Judean wilderness in late antiquity and has never entirely disappeared from it. Greek Orthodox monks still live here, keep the offices, tend the courtyard and receive travellers. The house carries one of the most enduring legends of eastern Christianity, that of the monk who removed a thorn from a lion's paw and was accompanied by the animal for the rest of his life — an image reproduced in icons throughout the Orthodox world. Below the church, older levels and burial spaces recall the long history of the site. Filmed in 4K, the contrast is the film's spine: the emptiness of the desert against the density of colour and detail inside the walls, and the sound of chant in a place where there is otherwise almost nothing to hear.
