Film Review of A Hidden Life directed by Terrence Malick: Morality and Suffering

A Hidden Life, the latest movie of Terrence Malick, finally gains back a balance between the use of contrasting images and fluency of storyline, after three films directed in seven years. This time, the film, as expected, bears the unique trademarks of Terrence: characters' monologue, nature scenes switching among dialogue, and gentle background music. Dealing with such a heavy topic, Terrence is still able to achieve a calm and poetic atmosphere in his production, even the torture and death of Franz seems to be not painful at all. One of the reasons is because of the grandeur beauty of natural views appearing in the movie, all the pain and sufferings are being absorbed into the awe of nature. One would notice that no matter how people are evil or not, the sun still shines and the river still flows.

The plot is plainly simple, it is about a peasant farmer Franz Jägerstätter refused to serve in the Nazi campaign and how his family suffered from his decision. However, as usual, Terrence aims more than to tell the story, he attempts to illustrate his deep reflections on life through the storytelling.

The theme contains few themes which I aim to discuss two of them, the first one is about the morality of an action and the second one is about sufferings in religion.

Throughout the story, the refusal of Franz to Nazi, even using his life as the cost, shows the virtue of one not yielding to evilness even sacrificing one's life. Although apparently, Terrence appreciates the action of Franz, whether the defiance of Franz, that leads to the suffering of his family, is fair to his family is questionable, as his decision is not about the concern of the world but solely for his own soul. There are several characters telling Franz that his sacrifice would benefit no one and he definitely agreed by saying: "I don't judge you...But I have a feeling inside me that I can't do what I believe is wrong." This would arise a long argument between the intrinsic value and the utilitarian approach of action.

Another reflection is about suffering in religion. Terrence keeps contemplating the relationship between Christianity and life throughout his directing life, such an attempt was revealed in his past movies such as the <Tree of Life> (2011) and <To the Wonder> (2012). In this film, what Franz and his family went through invokes a challenging question to Christians about the love of God. If he loves humans, as he claimed by letting Christ died for us, why he let us suffer without a purpose? When Franz was sentenced to death, his wife Fani asked God: "You said knock, it will be opened. Ask, it will be given."
While at the end of the movie, there is still no explanation on their sufferings and the death of Franz changed nothing about the war, Fani, doing routine farming works, spoke again: "Time will come when we will know what all this is for, and there will be no mysteries. We will know why we live. We'll come together, we'll plant orchids, fields, we'll build the land back up."

The acceptance of Fani on purposeless sufferings somehow echoes the Book of Job. God didn't explain to Job the reason for his suffering, the scripture said "Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm. He said: “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand." (Job 38:1-4 NIV)

The Lord demands Job to answer where Job was when he made all the creation. Sometimes, sufferings and pain are maybe not for an explanation, but for holding one in awe and respect.
And I sincerely hope that the suffering all we have gone through will get some consolation.


Rating: 3.5/5