A Hidden Life

"Better to suffer injustice than to do it..."

I don't have many words tonight. A lot of thoughts and emotions. I didn't expect a perfect score from me this year, but I am just floored and overwhelmed by the visual poetry and spiritual magnitude of it all. It feels transcendent. With a beauty that permeates all the way to one's own relationship with God.

Based on true events, A Hidden Life is Malick's most direct exploration of faith since To the Wonder, and perhaps his most fully realized work yet. It is an allegorical story about a man of extraordinary faith. A real-life parable of perseverance and free will. A spiritual journey centered in not just our humanity, but on what it means to truly walk the steps of Christ. And on what it means to choose what we believe is right and just, when we are given every reason not to.

Malick doesn't glorify the central character's ideals or deeds. Rather we focus on the humble threads of love and the storm they weather--and the romantic chemistry is perfect. August Diehl & Valerie Pachner are both exceptional and so incredibly in love. Seconds into the film and you already know it. Pachner gives a particularly moving performance deserving of an Oscar nomination (she is in SF this week doing Q&A's!). Every touch, glance, or embrace between these two is personal, powerful, believable. You can see the stress leave their shoulders each time they first see each other. Sincerity fills the screen as their thoughts, worries, desires, and personal bond resurface in the context of God.

The cinematography is superb, with DP notably credited to Jörg Widmer and not Emmanuel Lubezki. There is a rare seamless quality achieved blending in old footage as well as in choosing to entirely forgo subtitles in a film spoken in equal parts English and German. The music is the best I've heard all year. A beautiful traditional theme by James Newton Howard (Blood Diamond, TDK) with Handel, Dvorak, and other great classical works mixed in.

A Hidden Life is a film that may stay with you for some time. This is quintessential Malick, joining the ranks of The Thin Red Line and The Tree of Life. Go in with an open mind and heart, ready for a spiritual experience.

Nearly half a century lies between this film and the only previous Terrence Malick I'd seen, BADLANDS, which I admire very much and have watched a number of times. As might be expected, he's a very different film maker now. I found A HIDDEN LIFE something of a puzzle. It is undoubtedly beautiful to watch, even as its subject matter gets progressively grimmer. Its religiosity was something of a challenge to me, as was its stilted dialogue. Its story is the familiar one of a man suffering for what he believes. It is the story of John Procter, the hero of Arthur Miller's play THE CRUCIBLE; it is the story of Ibsen's Dr Stockmann, in the play ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE. And of course it's the story of Jesus Christ. There is a tragic grandeur to all of these, and, whatever my reservations about it, there is tragic grandeur to A HIDDEN LIFE. My husband found it unbearably pretentious. I can see why. But I admire the way that this film isn't like anyone else's, that Malick has, in the course of the last half-century, found a way of working that delivers something unique. It certainly won't be to everyone's taste, and aspects of it test one's patience. All the same, I was glad to have seen it, not least for the cinematography and the performances, and the retelling of a story that we all still need to hear in these troubled times.

Saw this in Toronto and felt privileged to be in a world where a movie like this is made and a story like this is told. Based on letters written between a husband and wife while he is in jail for being a conscientious objector in Hitler's Austria. So heartbreaking to see how the village where he lived, all friends and neighbours for decades - all become his enemies as he is the only one willing to say No. And yet he is strong in his convictions and sustained by love.

Another Terrance Malick film but - thank God - it's not like his last ones. He is back. I was bored of the idea of another Anti-Nazi film but I'm telling you it's not. This is a film about pride, bravery, principles, choice, humanity. As usual from Malick: great shots and cinematography, great monologues, such an incredible soundtrack that deserved an Oscar nomination (also the cinematography). But still the editing got me confused at some scenes, it was a weakness point. The cast are all good especially August Diehl & Valerie Pachner. No cliches, no heroes, just a simple man whose opinion won't affect the war and no one would listen to it, but he is still standing for his principles to make himself and his family proud of himself as a human. A Hidden Life of a hidden family. Some people could get bored quickly so it's simply not for them. They have a lot of films for their taste. It's ok everyone has a taste. Just enjoy and let people enjoy.

Malick at his best. The actors, some of them well known in the German speaking world, shift between English end German. I did not believe this could work, but it does. Cinematic poetry, powerful. a film worth 3 hours.