Movie Review: A Hidden Life

A Hidden Life **** ½ / *****

Directed by: Terrence Malick.

Written by: Terrence Malick. 

Starring: August Diehl (Franz Jägerstätter), Valerie Pachner (Franziska Jägerstätter), Michael Nyqvist (Bishop Joseph Fliessen), Matthias Schoenaerts (Herder), Jürgen Prochnow (Major Schlegel), Bruno Ganz (Judge Lueben), Alexander Fehling (Fredrich Feldmann), Ulrich Matthes (Lorenz Schwaninger), Karl Markovics (Mayor), Franz Rogowski (Waldlan), Tobias Moretti (Vicar Ferdinand Fürthauer), Martin Wuttke (Major Kiel), Max Mauff (Sterz), Johan Leysen (Ohlendorf), Dimo Alexiev (Dino), Leo Baumgartner (Toni Strohhofer), Ulrich Brandhoff (Captain Jürgen), Konrad Hochgruber (Gänshänger), Moritz Katzmair (Prisoner Martin), Waldemar Kobus (Stein), Thomas Mraz (Prosecutor Lars), Karin Neuhäuser (Rosalia), Johannes Nussbaum (Josef), Alexander Radszun (Sharp Judge), Nicholas Reinke (Father Moericke), Sophie Rois (Aunt), Ermin Sijamija (Ermin), Maria Simon (Resie), Benno Steinegger (Corporal Grimm). 

 

Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life is the most complicated depiction of Christianity on film since Martin Scorsese’s Silence a few years ago. It always frustrates me when I hear people complain that Hollywood doesn’t make films for Christians – and then when they do, if they aren’t the easily digestible, pats on the back that most “Christian” movies are – but serious ones, that ask serious questions of those with faith, they are ignored. Malick has always been a Christian filmmaker – his films are infused with his Christian ideals from the start, and yet A Hidden Life may be his most overtly religious film. It also feels like a film that although it took place 80 years ago, is tailor made for the here-and-now. Malick isn’t interested in comforting people in this film – but confronting them.

 

The film tells the story of Franz Jägerstätter (August Diehl), who isn’t a name you are going to read in any history books, and that is precisely the point. The film opens on his almost impossibly idyllic farm in the Austrian mountains – where Franz lives with his beautiful, loving wife Franziska (Valerie Pachner), their adorable children, his mother and sister-in-law. The farm looks very much the image of paradise – the beautiful green grass, the rolling hills, the mountains in the distance, etc. The small nearby town is quant, and full of brotherly love and good cheer. Everyone here works hard – but they don’t complain. The treat the earth right, and are treated right in return. Franz is living a completely unremarkable life – but a completely contented life – and isn’t that kind of the whole point?

 

But with Hitler’s rise to power, it complicates things. He is called in for basic training, and goes, and then is sent home again to be with his family. While there, he hears more and more about what is happening – the murder of innocents, the racist Nationalism disguised as patriotism (sound familiar?), etc. – and determines that if called to serve, he will not be able to do so. The town turns against him and his family – he is called a traitor, and is ostracized. His own mother cannot understand his position, his sister-in-law questions it – even the local Priest and Bishop, who are extremely sympathetic to his point-of-view, do not fully support him. There may be an out – he may be able to simply work in a hospital during the war, instead of fighting. How can he object to that? Because it still requires him to swear an oath of loyalty to Hitler – and that he simply cannot do.

 

There are many remarkable things about Malick’s film – but perhaps the most remarkable from a story perspective is how Malick makes it clear that Jägerstätter does what he does, knowing the whole time it will not make a difference – will not really benefit anyone. No one hears about his story, it doesn’t inspire others to stand up to Hitler. He’s facing death – the ultimate sacrifice – and abandoning his family in doing so, and for what? It won’t help anything – but he has to do it anyway. His faith will not allow him to bend, to compromise. Malick is confronting us with that question – it is easy to stand up when they’re aren’t consequences, perhaps even easy to do when you doing so will make a difference. But simply doing the right thing because you must, even if it benefits no one is hard. Jägerstätter lived a hidden life – and it largely remains hidden, because it’s not an overly dramatic story.

 

Malick, then, is the right filmmaker for this material. Really, this is his first time returning to a true kind of narrative filmmaking since 2005’s The New World – his last few films have drifted and glided along, telling paper thin stories, that are really more about images and emotions, than narrative and character. I know many disliked To the Wonder, Knight of Cups and Song to Song (and outside of festival, which is where I saw it, did anyone even see Voyage of Time – did it ever actually come out?) – but while I will say they are the weakest in Malick’s filmography – they are still wonderful in their own way. In A Hidden Life, Malick shoots much of the film in the same style – the camera gliding, and swooping down on the characters from all angles – sometimes in close-up, sometimes not. The whispers voice-overs are still there as well – and the absolutely beautiful imagery, sound design and music. Even if you didn’t know who directed the film, it wouldn’t take more than a minute to figure it out.

 

Some (many) will then complain about the film. They will find it too long (at nearly three hours), or feel that any film about Nazis shouldn’t be this beautiful, or that any films about evil Nazis that barely mentions the Holocaust, and shows none of it, is irresponsible. None of that holds much water with me – Malick depends on you knowing that Nazis are evil, and what they are doing. The film is beautiful, in part, to show the sacrifice that Jägerstätter is really making by living his idyllic world for no reason (and to contrast his old life, with the misery of life in jail). To me, the film became an almost overwhelming experience. This is Malick not quite at his best (I don’t think it’s quite the film Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line, The New World or The Tree of Life are) – but pretty darn close. It is an overtly political film, an overtly religious film – more so than every before. It still does address Malick’s many pet themes – it shares with The Thin Red Line its view of war as the ultimate violation of man’s covenant with god – and nature. I wouldn’t quite call it a return to form for Malick – because I liked his recent films more than most. But it’s still his best in a while – and one that I hope people will actually go and see. It says a lot about humanity – both in the past, and in the here and now.