Posted on 07/15/2019 2:30:05 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
When Austrian farmer Franz Jägerstätter (August Diehl) glances skyward and calls for God to show him a sign, to guide him, what does he hear? The rumbling of a thunderstorm hovering atop the Alps surrounding his bucolic hometown of St Radegund; the sound of the wind caressing the wheat fields around the village; the voice of his wife Fani (Valerie Pachner) and their three little girls. And then, once World War II breaks out and jettisons him in a dim-light world of military prisons and court tribunals, its the sound of broken limbs and bodies thudding on floors; the echo of air raid sirens; the loud bang of gunshots. In a body of work infused with the question of faith, mankinds distance and proximity to God has never felt as pressing a concern as it does in A Hidden Life, a period piece homing in on the real-life story of a man who refused to enlist for the Nazis, and paid the ultimate price for his defiance.
(Excerpt) Read more at thefilmstage.com ...
Whats happened to our country? ponders Franz, as he eschews alcohol-fueled confrontations with the belligerent village Mayor, and finds refuge in Fanis embrace; dont people know Evil when they see it? But in Malicks scriptvoiceover-heavy and unfurling as a long, uninterrupted conversation between husband and wife, and between husband and GodFranzs preoccupations find no audience. In this sense, A Hidden Life is an invocation, the wrenching and unheeded plea of a man struggling to preserve his humanity intact as the world around him plunges deeper into evil, and worse, watches motionless and indifferent as said evil blossoms, spreads, and becomes normalized.
State and Church are equally deaf to Franzs worries, and equally complicit in the crime. For even when the devout man turns to the clergy for help, consulting a bishop over his decision to refuse joining the troops if called upon by military authorities (shouldnt it matter if a war is just or not?) the prelates answer is a chilling reminder that you have a duty to the Fatherland; the Church tells you so.
Still, the horrors of the frontline remain a distant, ethereal presence, reverberating in the muffled sound of war planes gliding above the clouds and in the Führers speeches, bellowed from megaphones around the village. Malicks latest may well echo the anti-war sentiment of The Thin Red Lineoffering an interesting companion piece to it, incidentallybut it is not a war film tout-court. World War II is an encroaching evil, but remains an invisible one. And the conflict the script pivots on is one of unbridgeable philosophies, of different languages. It is a battle that plays out from within (the internal struggle of a Christian and his conscience) and without, between Franz and the crowd hes up against: the villagers who gradually ostracize his whole family, and the soldiers who incarcerate him no sooner than he shows up at the barracks after being enlisted, and refuses to recite the oath, embarking on an asphyxiating hell of prison tortures and loneliness. Do you have a right to do this? military court judge Bruno Ganz challenges Franz minutes before the final sentence. Do I have right not to? the inmate asks back.
Watching the farmer willingly and unflinchingly head toward his tragic fate, showing the other cheek to the men who humiliate, belittle, and torture him, Diehls Franz harkens back to a Christ-like figure. And indeed, as A Hidden Life enters its last, prison- and tribunal-set segments, the feeling is to be witnessing Malicks own version of Christs Passion. From a director whose poetic imaginary has long been concerned with the need to reveal and celebrate the beauty and immanence of the natural world, A Hidden Life feels both familiar and perturbing.
While Lubezkis absence may raise a few highbrows, Widmers widescreen tableaux capture the sprawling immensity of Franz and Fanis hidden life in all its mystic splendor, while the otherworldly choirs and classical pieces by composer James Newton only add to the wonder. And yet, A Hidden Life seems to complicate Malicks traditional evangelizing. If some of the most entrancing shots of his previous works (from the tree-root cathedral in The Thin Red Line to the Grand Canyon segments in The Tree of Life) were the hymns of a man who heard all of creation trumpeting the glory of the Creator, A Hidden Life seems more preoccupied with thrusting light onto a humanity who may have lost the ability to hear the divine speak. Someday Ill paint a true Christ, a man working on the frescos decorating Radegunds church tells Franz in an early scene, complaining about his inability to depict Jesus suffering instead of the more tranquil, peaceful icons local clergymen are after. Its a subtle summation for a film that achieves the miraculous feat of both jibing at religious institutions, while celebrating faith as something that transcends them, something mysterious to cherish and behold.
A Hidden Life premiered at Cannes Film Festival and will be released by Fox Searchlight.
The Tree Of Life is the most pro-God major motion picture to come out in recent years. One beautiful cinematic paraphrase of the Book of Job. I’ll be looking for Hidden Life with great interest.
I wonder where well be able to see it in this country. Ill be looking for it!
I am amazed and graeful that his movie is coming out, though it;s unlikely to come to Upper East Tennessee and so I would never see it on the Big Screen. I wonder if it will at some time become available as a DVD? Every parish should get this.
Nobody should go through life without knowing about this luminous man. If ever a man live "in persona Christi," it was Jaegerstatter.man.
WOW. I look forward to learning more about this incredible man.
Will keep you posted about ways to view the film. <3
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