A Hidden Life Review (1/8/2020)

A Hidden Life is a whole lotta film, and I have a lot to say about it, both good and bad. It started off nothing less than incredible. Terrence Malick is a filmmaker whom I’ve had little experience with to this point, and right off the bat I can see his appeal. A Hidden Life is simply spellbinding, with the most beautiful cinematography I’ve seen all year and a hypnotically beautiful score that lulls the audience into a sense of wonder. The lush green of the grass, the mists hanging in the mountain valleys; all these sights paint a vivid picture of the paradise that the film’s protagonist lives in, already absorbing us in his life and soul, while his life flashes around him in a cascading spiral of vivid colors and emotions that play out not in chronological order but rather jumping around from emotion to emotion, experience to experience, memory to memory, well capturing the way humans truly experience their lives and sweeping up the audience in a dizzingly romantic and poetic style of filmmaking.

A Hidden Life is based on the true story of Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian farmer living under Nazi occupation during World War II who famously refused to swear allegiance to Hitler, and its themes could not be more relevant. With a world edging closer to collapse, and an immortal, fascistic administration in America and their inhumane ICE rounding up migrants and sending them to concentration camps, A Hidden Life digs deep into moral and philosophical questions of obligation, loyalty, love and sacrifice. It is a film that examines closely the consequences of doing the right thing, and asks us if any of them are reasons to turn our backs on our own morals. Does loyalty to one’s family and one’s country mean anything if it is false? Is it better to sacrifice everything and remain true to what’s right or to preserve that which you hold dear but at the cost of your soul? These questions are the sole focus of this film, and with our vantage point from directly within Franz’s point of view, we can see every agonizing detail of his emotional and moral struggle, especially as the stakes mount and the oncoming threat of the war and the Nazi party become clear. For Franz, to defy the Nazis is to lose everything – his life, his family’s place in their community, the love of his friends and people, and the beautiful life in paradise he’s made for himself – with little to no benefit to any of it. Yet, even still, he cannot bring himself to follow evil, and do what his heart knows is wrong.

For the first half of its three hour runtime, A Hidden Life plays off as a work of visual poetry, its straightforward plot important for context but less relevant than the philosophical ponderings of its various monologues and montages. For this first half, it succeeds, and it does magnificently so.

The problems begin when the spell begins to wear off.

About halfway in, I found that I was beginning to grow restless. I’m someone who can handle a three hour epic, but there didn’t feel like enough material in this film to properly stretch out into that long of a runtime. Franz’s story was far from over at this point, as he is eventually taken off to prison, and here the story really enters a rut. The musings and monologues and voiceover narrations start to become redundant as the same scenes and themes are played out again and again, of Franz’s fellow villagers rejecting his family, of his superiors asking the same, increasingly empty questions, of endless monologue after monologue set over beautifully shot yet increasingly repetitive footage. The conclusion it comes to is a profound one, one that made me seriously question my own role in my society and the political upheavals ongoing in my country, but it took far too long to get there, and in its final hour it brings up elements that add very little to the overall picture. All the idiosyncracies and stylistic elements that were unique to Malick’s directorial voice and created a unique and immersive feel to the film gradually turned into insufferable annoyances. By the end, I was completely drawn out of the film, and just wanting it to end, and much of the work that the first half had done to drag me into the conflict and make me personally invested in had gone to waste.

A Hidden Life is a relevant and highly thought-provoking film that does a fantastic job of drawing the viewer into its beautiful and compelling world. It has some of the best cinematography I’ve seen this year, and does a fantastic job of exploring the depths of its deeply moral and philosophical themes. Unfortunately, however, it is far too long, and by the end it buckles completely under its own weight. It’s a film I’m glad I watched, but I can’t recommend it to anyone other than those who enjoy philosophy or Terrence Malick’s previous works.