Review: A Hidden Life

Image courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures.

Some have called "A Hidden Life" Terrence Malick's return to form and his best work since 2011's towering "The Tree of Life," which I recently named my favorite movie of the decade. It's true that "A Hidden Life" is the most focused and least free-form film by the director since that movie. It's better than "Knight of Cups," "Voyage of Time" and "Song to Song," and about comparable to "To the Wonder."

And yet, "A Hidden Life" doesn't rise to the level of the enigmatic filmmaker's best pictures. It's often visually breathtaking, from the gorgeous Austrian vistas Malick captures to the director's typical stylistic choice of a swirling camera, and more emotionally gratifying than some of his more recent, and less focused, works.

It's also more grounded in narrative, and based on an apparent true story - that of Franz Jagerstatter (August Diehl), an Austrian farmer who decided during World War II to become a conscientious objector because he couldn't swear an oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler. You can imagine how that went for him.

Franz lives on a farm with his three young children and wife, Fani (Valerie Pachner). They take part in a quiet, simple existence that involves a lot of hard work. Much of the early scenes involve Franz and Fani toiling away the days on their farm. One day, a plane is heard overhead, signaling intrusion from the outside world. Sure enough, word of war spreads and Franz's fellow villagers quickly begin spouting Nazi talking points, much to his dismay. His neighbors take a disliking to his refusal to give the Nazi salute and his criticisms of the fuhrer.

Malick's films are often period pieces - for instance "Days of Heaven," "Badlands," "The New World" and portions of "The Tree of Life" - and this isn't the first time he has tackled war - recall his great "The Thin Red Line." This is, however, the first time I can recall one of his films having an overtly political message. There are moments during which Franz speaks of his anguish at the troubled state of the world, and much of what he fears feels similar today, especially his fellow villagers' hatred for foreigners and immigrants.

While "A Hidden Life" is often beautiful to look at and emotionally affecting, it's also much longer than it likely need be, frequently repetitive - we get patterns of shots of men wandering a prison yard, shots of their cells and then cut-backs to Franz and Fani's farm - and slightly vague in its characterization of some figures - for example, the actor Matthias Schoenaerts pops up in a cameo and I'm not exactly sure who he's supposed to be.

That being said, "A Hidden Life" is an improvement over the meandering "Song to Song" and the slightly better, but unfocused, "Knight of Cups." "The Tree of Life" was a high watermark for the filmmaker - and for 2010s filmmaking in general, in my opinion - and I've yet to see him regain the spark that made that film so fascinating and ambitious.

His latest picture is visually stunning, and the nature of its story makes for some powerful storytelling, but while it's good, it doesn't reach the heights that Malick proved he can reach earlier this decade. "A Hidden Life" is worth a look for viewers with some time - and patience - to spare.