Malick's 'A Hidden Life' a beautifully photographed tale of resistance
“A Hidden Life” — ★ ★ ★
Terrence Malick's “A Hidden Life” resides above the clouds in a small Alpine hamlet.
Franz Jägerstätter lives there, in Austria, with his wife, Franziska, and their daughters. They spend their days working and playing in the hillside fields, enraptured by their humble mountain idyll.
The Nazis don't arrive all at once. Hitler's rise at first seems very distant. (Malick opens the film and occasionally intersperses black-and-white archival footage.) But hateful, anti-immigrant Third Reich ideology begins to seep in. Angry words can be overheard in the town's square and, eventually, all are conscripted into the Nazi army. Jägerstätter (played by August Diehl) is the only one not willing to pledge himself to Hitler.
“A Hidden Life” is based on a true story. Jägerstätter was a conscientious objector during World War II whose little-known story has gradually risen in prominence in the decades since Pope Benedict XVI beatified him in 2007.
Across a running time of three hours, Malick renders Jägerstätter's noble protest with spiritual and photographic grandeur. The movie — glacial, searching and symphonic — is a hymn, or prayer, examining the nature of sacrifice. Jägerstätter's stand is not one grand moment, but countless refusals, hardships and indignities, all experienced with quaking pains of uncertainty.
While more linear than the director's most recent films, Malick relies on his now familiar methods — some might say frustratingly prescribed habits — of beautiful, sky-gazing cinematography (Jörg Widmer provides the cinematography), inner-monologue musing and sometimes grating actorly improvisation.
No one could doubt the sincerity of Malick's mission. He is deeply infused in Jägerstätter's story, chronicling the splendor of the life that he, when the authorities come for him, must cut himself off from in order to do what he believes right. Such a story feels bracingly contemporary and profoundly inspiring.
But it also feels like Malick's way of filmmaking gets in the way. Even on his recent, less popular movies (“Song to Song,” “Knight of Cups”), it's been impossible to imagine them made by anyone else. But this time it's tempting to consider what a more precise director might have done with “A Hidden Life.” Malick's movie is openhearted, metaphysical and ruminative. But it might have benefited from being brought down to Earth.
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Starring: August Diehl, Valerie Pachner
Directed by: Terrence Malick
Other: A Fox Searchlight release. Rated PG-13 for thematic material including violent images. 174 minutes