Directing: B
Acting: B+
Writing: B
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B-

You can always tell when you’re watching a Terrence Malick film. Whether it’s his take on Pocahontas in The New World (2005) or the mysterious link between evolution and 1950s parenthood in the baffling Tree of Life (2011), wildly different types of stories are always told in the same visual style: sweeping camera movements within randomly cut shots. They may all be different stories, but it’s always Malick’s world.

A Hidden Life is unusually straightforward storytelling for Terrence Malick, as it happens. Even with the standard sorts of editing and cinematography, the story of passive resistance by one Austrian farmer named Franz Jäggerstätter (August Diehl) during World War II is easy to follow. It’s also long, also typical of Malick’s films: here 174 minutes. That I never found myself bored to sleep is a minor miracle, although I can easily imagine that happening to other viewers. There’s a lot of time spent just observing Franz and his wife, Fani (Valerie Pachner), living their simple live as small village farmers in the Austrian mountains.

That setting is what makes a whole lot of A Hidden Life very pretty to look at. Those mountain peaks and grassy fields make for a nice backdrop as Franz, after briefly training for German military service, comes to the realization that supporting Hitler’s regime is not the right thing to do. Franz has probably fewer lines than any other character, as he spends a lot of time stoically bearing the brunt of judgment, ridicule and even screaming, first by the others in his village, and then by the keepers at the prison he is taken to. It does lend greater impact to the few things he does say, such as, “I can’t do what I believe is wrong.”

I felt largely ambivalent about Franz’s martyrdom, to be honest. In another scene, as Franz continues to refuse to sign a paper that declares loyalty to Hitler, he is told, “God doesn’t care what you say, only what’s in your heart!” It seemed like a reasonable argument to me, at least from the point of view of a believer. I also wondered how this movie might come across differently to atheists (like myself) as opposed to the faithful. Many people who cross Franz’s path, from townspeople to soldiers at his prison, tell him his resistance has no bearing on the outcome of the war, or on the state of the world. That may be true in the immediate term, but arguably not on the long run. He clearly inspired plenty, considering he was a real man and we’re watching a movie about him 76 years after he lived.

Nevertheless, I cannot help but wonder: Why not just tell these people what they want to hear? A Hidden Life clearly wants us to ask ourselves this question: what would you do in his position? Would you stand firm until the bitter end? I’m not sure I would, and neither am I sure that would be a shameful thing. Refusing to serve in the army is one thing; that I find far more understandable and do feel I would be much more likely to refuse as well. But to refuse to sign a document, or else face death? It’s just a sheet of paper, with only the meaning you ascribe to it. As many of the people around him also pointed out, this would not have only gotten himself out of trouble. It would have prevented his wife and three children from becoming pariahs in their village as well.

That is not to say such people are deserving any defense themselves, although Franz himself might say so: when asked by one general, “Do you judge me?” he answers no. Franz seems to have real empathy and understanding as to how and why some people do and say the things they do. He is also torn and worried about the state of his country and the notion of people he thought were friends calling him “a traitor” to his race.

A Hidden Life has clear relevance to the state of our world today, with the oft-repeated refrain of what we might tell our grandchildren we did ourselves, in the face of horrible actions on the part of national leadership. Are we all complicit? and to what extent? This movie does not at all go out of its way to underline this analogy, but it’s still plainly there to see. Franz is at one point told, “You have blood on your hands,” and that may also be true, to the extent that it is true of all of us.

Terrence Malick is posing questions to us here in the form of a three-hour movie, and they are compelling, albeit of varying severity depending on your point of view. I do wish Franz actually spoke more often. Over and over he is asked direct questions, by his friends, by his wife, by the authorities, and he will just stand or star in silence. It seems unlikely Franz Jäggerstätter was quite like that in real life. But, for the purposes of this movie, he stoically endures increasing levels of abuse. It is certainly for a just cause, but another question might ask is whether a just cause is also a worthy cause. A Hidden Life is a meticulously executed film that perhaps has no answer to that question.

*Quiet resistance never looked so beautiful.*

Overall: B