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A Hidden Life

A Hidden Life
Ein verborgenes Leben
Terrence Malick
D, United States 2019
173 min
V'19

With A HIDDEN LIFE, Terrence Malick returns to historical material for the first time since A NEW WORLD, once again setting the boundlessness of nature against the restrictions of human life. His subject this time is Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian farmer who remained steadfast in his refusal to swear allegiance to Hitler, which robbed him first of his freedom and later of his life.
Structured by Jägerstätter’s impressions in voiceover together with those of his wife Franziska, the film crafts a suitably allenveloping portrait of the rural idyll the family inhabit, not least to make the contrast with the stations of Franz’s subsequent fate reverberate all the louder. Rolling mountain pastures gradually give way to claustrophobic interiors, the rushing wind and babbling streams are replaced by barked commands, and warmth and community recede into cheerless solitude; for all Malick’s talent at creating beauty, he’s equally adept at capturing the ugliness of the Nazi regime. Yet A HIDDEN LIFE is ultimately about both existing side by side, one offering solace against the other: a monument forged of light and air to a man who believed, never to be pulled down to earth. (James Lattimer)

Credits
  • Karl Markovics - Mayor
  • August Diehl - Franz Jägerstätter
  • Valerie Pachner - Franziska Jägerstätter
  • Matthias Schoenaerts - Herder
  • Jürgen Prochnow - Major Schlegel
  • Bruno Ganz - Judge Lueben
  • Terrence Malick
  • Jörg Widmer
  • Rehman Nizar Ali
  • Joe Gleason
  • Sebastian Jones
  • James Newton Howard
  • Sebastian T. Krawinkel
Iris Productions, Studio Babelsberg, Elizabeth Bay Productions

Mister Smith Entertainment

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