A Hidden Life film review: visually sublime

THERE is a moment in Terrence Malick’s visually sublime A Hidden Life where Franz Jagerstatter (August Diehl) briefly pauses before a crucifix in a field in his glorious Austrian alpine village, St. Radegund.

You could call it a nod and a wink but it’s neither. Franz never considers himself a Christ figure; he has a piety and a humility before his god that would never have him so much as countenancing such a thought.

But the director is not constrained in the same way. Indeed, Malick seems to be suggesting this is The Way; he is deliberately pointing us at a Christ figure in modernity and what that means in essence.

In that regard, the famed Malick cinematography perfectly blends with this true story of a remarkable conscientious objector in World War II.

The surfaces are so clean in this Eden while the cinematographic devices are employed to mimic the reality of Franz’s being and the world he inhabits. The camera is ever-present, hovering as close as is possible; is that his soul we are being invited to see?

There is a suggestion that while we can’t envisage his inner life, as beautifully as it is evoked in Malick’s script, that somehow the physical reality is closely matched to the spiritual experience: that truth actually resides in the totality of our lives.

This is tough, even brutal for Franz’ devoted wife Franziska (Valerie Pachner). She never resiles from her belief in him but has the considerations of a young family, unmarried sister and a skeptical mother-in-law to take into account as their farming idyll is threatened by her husband’s implacable behaviour.

So we watch as Franz’s return from military training and skepticism about the cause his Austrian Fuhrer represents hardens into outright dissent at his conscription.

It’s a long, harrowing process shown over three hours as Franz refuses to bend the slightest in his convictions, despite the hostility of the villagers and the Army’s bureaucracy that puts him through the processes of military imprisonment.

At times you pray for his salvation. But most of all, Malick is showing us that, even in the face of the worst of consequences, salvation means different things to different people.

A Hidden Life (PG)

Directed by: Terrence Malick

Starring: August Diehl, Valerie Pachner, Michael Nyqvist, Bruno Ganz

Reviewed by: Martin Turner

In cinemas: January 29-February 2

4.5 stars