A Hidden Life Review
Based on real events, A Hidden Life is the story of an unsung hero, Bl. Franz Jägerstätter, who refused to fight for the Nazis in World War II. When the Austrian peasant farmer is faced with the threat of execution for treason, it is his unwavering faith and his love for his wife, Fani, and children that keeps his spirit alive.
PG-13: Thematic material including violent images.
Runtime: 2 Hours and 53 Minutes
Production Companies: Fox Searchlight Pictures, Elizabeth Bay Productions, Aceway, Studio Babelsberg
Distributor: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Writer/Director: Terrence Malick
Cast: August Diehl, Valerie Pachner, Matthias Schoenaerts
Release Date: December 13, 2019
It’s that time again. A new Terrence Malick has dropped.
Here’s the thing: I have a real love/HATE—emphasis on hate—relationship with Terrence Malick. I liked Badlands a lot, but that was old Malick. His recent shit, on the other hand, has fueled me with nothing but rage to the highest degree. Knight of Cups was something I cut off early because it was so boring, but nothing could’ve been worse for my career in film than my theater experience while watching Song to Song, a movie that I just couldn’t fucking deal with at all. I’m still surprised by how I managed to sit all the way through it without walking out. That piece of pretentious bullshit wasn’t a movie, it was a goddamn endurance test that I witnessed SO MANY CRITICS walk out of. But I stuck with it all the way through and it managed to become my #2 worst movie of 2017.
SO, with that history factored in, it took me by surprise to hear that his latest feature, A Hidden Life, was his best film in years at Cannes Film Festival. Internally, I egotistically went, “I’ll be the judge of that”. Despite its nearly three-hour runtime, I ran into that theater at TIFF to check it out, and honestly… it’s true. This is his best film in years and I learned something about myself in the process.
Fox Searchlight is really set on these Nazi Germany pieces to top off their 2019 slate, huh? You have Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit in a few weeks, and then this contemplative drama centered on real life figure Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian man with a family who is faithful to his belief of peace. Chronicling the nation’s unbridled nationalism with the stirrings of the Third Reich underway, villagers start turning on him for his refusal to fight in the war. Caught between a rock (go fight in the war, leave his family, and risk getting killed) and a hard place (staying home to be a loving father while pressured by his community and being considered a traitor for not blindlessly going into war), Jägerstätter chooses the latter. It’s just one dude refusing to serve so he can provide for his family, but everyone around him said, “your ass fights or your ass gets imprisoned”. Well, he gets imprisoned and it doesn’t bode well for him.
Instead of going the experimental route, Malick finally told a narrative with structure—one based on a true story. As extensive as it is, a lot of the film is truly compelling in presentation and tone. It’s a departure from his recent works since the film actually has a developed script and the lead cast is full of unfamiliar actors.
The cinematography, done by German DP Jörg Widmer, is jaw-droppingly magnificent. If there is anything I commend Malick on it’s for shooting on location and taking advantage of the naturalistic beauty of his environments. I didn’t think there was such beauty in Germany and it kind of makes me want to take a trip there for the many breathtaking landscape shots of the country. This undoubtedly has the best cinematography I’ve seen this year and it’s so mesmerizing to watch. Plus, it shows how much money he put into production to give the story’s setting its deserved authenticity. It makes me wanna get a passport and travel to Germany ASAP. He captures the compactness of a small village community where one person kind of represents all in a hive-minded style. Like in Cheers, it’s a place where everyone knows his name. Prospering just as well is his framework where he shoots his characters in low angular shots and tracking shots, expressing their internal fears with the subtle external expressions they make, especially when Jägerstätter is in his community being watched and judged by his fellow peers. You feel the tension he faces, particularly with how quick one of the fellow villagers or his priest are so eager to scream out:
Another grand departure from Malick’s recent work which made this engaging was the performances by his relatively unknown cast. I mean, they’re names that are popular in foreign places, but I personally am not familiar with them. Aside from Matthias Schoenaerts, who was in another film I loved from earlier this year titled The Mustang, and the late Michael Nyqvist, I didn’t recognize anybody here, which made the story more real to me. As they exhibit true human emotions expressed by their subtle movements, the historical drama felt like an authentic timepiece.
I was in love with the first 54 minutes of the movie and how it perfectly establishes the complexity of this figure, his inner turmoil, and the pressure he faces as an individual in a patriotic nation. It’s mostly quiet and subtle, but the imagery speaks louder than the dialogue where it centers on a thoughtful and relevant theme of individualism versus nationalism and morality, which is expressed through the contemplative storytelling. But HOLY SHIT DOES THIS GO ON FOREVER.
I can never find a middle ground with his works lately and, while this is a good movie with strong storytelling, Malick desperately needs an editor to help him tell a constrained story. It doesn’t take three separate editors to cut down a narrative with so much great material into a great movie. This movie is two hours and 53 minutes long and it drags on forever. Not much goes on aside from historical facts and beautiful imagery. It’s a good contemplative effort, but this really would have benefitted from an editor brave enough to look at Malick and say, “Hey, I get this is your vision, and this story you want to tell is magnificent, but think of your audience and your story. People will get the gist early on. Let me cut this down to an appropriate size and we’ll be shoo-ins for Best Picture.” This could’ve been a Best Picture nominee, and if it does become one that’s power to his name, but A Hidden Life is way too extensive and routine that by the fourth juxtaposed sequence of Franz in captivity and his wife trying to raise their daughters without him, I gave up. I took a four-minute bathroom break and when I came back one of the scenes was still in the same location. Don’t get me wrong, I love subtle films full of ambiance expressed through visuals as long as it has something to say. Look at Martin Scorsese’s Silence from 2016. That was masterful to me. It was one of my favorite pieces of that year and it had the same kind of quiet atmosphere as this. Julian Schnabel’s At Eternity’s Gate is another great example. Those features had the support of star power, but they still told a fluent narrative that never got pretentious or dull. A Hidden Life gets seriously boring despite the many incredible things about it. I’ve seen The Irishman, which is three hours and 30 minutes long—nearly 40 minutes longer than this—yet, that flew by much faster. That’s also probably due to the star power and the tone, but this film could’ve been 40 to 60 minutes shorter to tell an impactful narrative.
While this is exceedingly better than his previous projects by a wide margin, I don’t see the personal need to extend the running time over the two hour and 30 minute mark, especially when the material is strong and his conventional structure of storytelling is enticing. Pushing the film with repetitive sequences is more pretentious than gorgeous.
With this being my fifth Malick film, I’ve come to a personal realization. Terrence Malick movies are simply just not for me. This is a good move as a whole, don’t get me wrong, and my rating will surprise you… but it's just not for me. I find it frustrating how stubborn he is when it comes to telling a tight story long after his audience gets the message he tries to convey. It’s the equivalent of a man rambling to explain something you don’t understand at a party. This movie is for two camps of people: old people who don’t care about the running time of a movie as long as it’s quiet and made by a recognizable name from their days, and hipster-ish art hoes/cinephiles who are defensive of his works—even his recent ones. If you’re in one of those fields, congrats! This movie is for you. But for me, it’s okay. It’s good, but it’s okay. That said, this will be my final review of a Malick movie for this site because I don’t care to see another film from him ever again.
