I Love Films That Make Me Think About Life
A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick, 2019)
I have to start my post saying I love every Malick film I have seen. I love both his poetic visual style, and his Christian influenced obsession with the eternal fight between Good and Evil. And this film is no exception.
[youtube=https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IrHixOnfWB8]
More focused on narrative than his previous films, based on a true story (how an Austrian peasant called Franz Jägerstätter was executed since he refused to pledge allegiance to Hitler), this is a long (3 hours) visual poem, full of beautiful natural images representing the beauty of creation, in opposition to the evil man can do. In each one of us both the seeds of good and evil lie hidden, it is our decision to water one or another. It is not an easy choice...how can we be sure that what we think righteousness is not just pride? Are we causing damage to our loved ones when our convictions make us an outcast?
The film takes its name from a quote by George Eliot: 'For the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs'.
Despite being recently beatified by Pope Benedict, Jägerstätter's life was for many year one of those hidden ones, but one of those meaning a victory of Good against evil.
I have to start my post saying I love every Malick film I have seen. I love both his poetic visual style, and his Christian influenced obsession with the eternal fight between Good and Evil. And this film is no exception.
[youtube=https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IrHixOnfWB8]
More focused on narrative than his previous films, based on a true story (how an Austrian peasant called Franz Jägerstätter was executed since he refused to pledge allegiance to Hitler), this is a long (3 hours) visual poem, full of beautiful natural images representing the beauty of creation, in opposition to the evil man can do. In each one of us both the seeds of good and evil lie hidden, it is our decision to water one or another. It is not an easy choice...how can we be sure that what we think righteousness is not just pride? Are we causing damage to our loved ones when our convictions make us an outcast?
The film takes its name from a quote by George Eliot: 'For the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs'.
Despite being recently beatified by Pope Benedict, Jägerstätter's life was for many year one of those hidden ones, but one of those meaning a victory of Good against evil.
