Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

A Hidden Life Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 16, 2020

There doesn’t seem to be much of a middle ground in terms of reactions by filmgoers to Terrence Malick. He is either a genius or a poseur, a radical visionary or an addlepated eccentric. Chances are your preexisting opinion of Malick will probably color how A Hidden Life may strike you, but this arguably overlong effort at least has some of the strengths of Malick’s best work, especially in terms of a lush, at times almost erotic feeling, accounting of the natural world, but for this particular filmgoer, it also offers something some Malick films have been notorious for not providing: a relatively clear and straightforward narrative, albeit one that tends to play out without a lot of overt exposition and with Malick's stylistic peculiarities often on display. That relatively straightforward aspect may be due to the fact that A Hidden Life is based on a real life, that of Franz Jägerstätter (portrayed by August Diehl in the film), a World War II era Austrian conscientious objector to the Nazi regime, an objection which unsurprisingly led to untold trauma for Jägerstätter and his family, including (and this really isn’t a spoiler since it’s part of the historical record) being put to death by the Nazis, a death later decreed to be martyrdom by the Catholic Church, leading to Jägerstätter’s beatification.

Though diehard Malick fans may feel this is comparing the sublime to the ridiculous, one of the salient plot points of another Fox release, The Sound of Music, had to do with the forced compliance of Captain Von Trapp, an Austrian military officer, to the whims of the Nazis, not just in terms of actually expected service at the front or in some other capacity, but in terms of a certain “groupthink”, which the musical kind of alludes to discursively. That forced compliance is a major motivating factor in A Hidden Life, as Jägerstätter is faced with a similar predicament, both in terms of being expected to serve as a soldier, but perhaps more importantly in being expected to pledge his unabashed loyalty to Hitler and the Nazi regime. In this case, however, Jägerstätter is, unlike the sophisticated and well connected Von Trapp, a fairly simple man of the earth, a farmer toiling away at a labor intensive job in an admittedly gorgeously scenic environment (there is in fact an early scene with Jägerstätter ringing the church bells and then traipsing through an alpine environment that could have come directly out of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic). Jägerstätter works along with his wife Franziska (Valerie Pochner), who goes by Fani, and, as is rather quickly detailed in a kind of early quasi-flashback, their children (as might be gleaned from this film’s running time of close to three hours, Malick lets some things develop fairly languorously, but the family dynamic, which also includes a couple of other members, is just kind of plopped down as a fait accompli almost as soon as the film starts).

The through line of A Hidden Life isn't complex by any means: Jägerstätter is a devout Christian who sees Hitler's advances as at the very least troubling and at the worst a devastating commentary on what's become of Austria, and while he goes to his first training regimen seemingly happy (if obviously missing his wife and girls), his unease grows to the point that he refuses to pledge a loyalty oath to Hitler, while also refusing a bunch of state offered support, something that soon brings his entire family into conflict with the surrounding villagers. Jägerstätter is ultimately arrested and imprisoned, while Fani and her sister Resie (Maria Simon) attempt to keep the family farm under control. Fani spends much of the film trying to cut through copious red tape just to be able to visit Jägerstätter in prison. That's basically it, "plot" wise, though that hardly addresses the film's almost trance like presentational aspects, with long, at times "one take", sequences offering a traditionally peripatetic Malick camera wending its way through unbelievably beautiful mountain locations with nary a word of dialogue. And in fact much of the "dialogue" here is epistolary, culled from actual letters Jägerstätter and Fani wrote to each other after Jägerstätter's imprisonment.

The fact that there really isn’t a ton of traditional “plot” in this movie probably only tends to highlights Malick’s distinctive style all the more, and I am frankly not sure it totally works for the film. A Hidden Life is ostensibly an intimate portrait of a man who stood against the forces of darkness without any indication his stand was going to make one whit of difference (there’s actually one of the film’s few traditional dialogue scenes exploring this very point rather late in the film), while his family members were left to piece together their shattered lives as best as they were able. It’s a tale that should be emotionally devastating, but even in the film’s kind of hallucinogenic climax, where Jägerstetter is dragged into a weird barn like structure where a huge black curtain hides a guillotine (!), there isn’t the catharsis that I at least was expecting. The film’s consistent use of weirdly skewed perspectives (more about that in the video section, below) tends to draw attention to itself without really providing a wealth of subliminal content, other than the omnipresent feeling that something is “off”, which was probably Malick’s intention. As such, my hunch is Malick lovers will probably at least admire if not adore this film, while Malick detractors will find this another largely head scratching viewing experience.

A Hidden Life Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

A Hidden Life is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. This is the first Malick film to be entirely digitally captured, with Red Cameras (at source capture resolutions of up to 7K), with a 4K DI. There is some fascinating content available online about the shoot, including several interviews with cinematographer Jörg Widmer (his first credit as Director of Photography with Malick, though he has a long history as a camera operator for the director), for those with enterprising Googling skills. What's most noticeable about the stylistic propensities of the film is not the actual capture, though, but the often "warped" look of the imagery within the frame, which I'm frankly not sure was accomplished with actual lenses or perhaps in post (none of the interviews or other online information about the shoot I perused dealt with this aspect overtly). As can probably be easily seen in several of the screenshots accompanying this review, there's a kind of "fish eye" look to much of the imagery, with weird looking stretching or bending often being most noticeable toward the edges of the frame. It gives the entire presentation here an off kilter feeling which probably helps to establish the unsettling mood, but which just as often can tend to draw attention to itself and therefore may end up being a distraction for some viewers. As Widmer discusses in several of the interviews available online, Malick wanted to use natural light wherever possible, and as such a few interior scenes can look a bit murky. But the outdoor material here is often breathtaking. Detail levels, even with the bizarre warping, tend to be excellent throughout the presentation, and depth of field in some of the alpine vistas is typically great as well. Malick and Widmer do tend to prominently feature close-ups, where fine detail on Diehl's increasingly haggard face is quite expressive. Grading here is rather subtle, but noticeable, with a slight push toward blue tones in the outdoor material especially. As can be seen in a couple of screenshots I've included, there are some brief interstitials of archival material, including the film's opening moments which are culled from Triumph of the Will, where the windowboxed imagery comes closer to Academy ratio.

A Hidden Life Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

A Hidden Life features a subtly immersive DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 track that derives much of its surround activity from near ubiquitous placement of ambient environmental effects, most noticeable in the many outdoor scenes, as well as James Newton Howard's evocative score, which blends original music with a number of classical source cues. As alluded to above, there isn't a ton of traditional dialogue in the film, and in fact much of the spoken material is delivered as voice over, specifically with regard to some of the epistolary material. There are some odd stylistic choices in the soundtrack as well (you expected anything else from a Malick film?), including several scenes which kind of inexplicably venture into German with no subtitles. All elements, including dialogue, score and effects, are rendered cleanly and clearly without any problems whatsoever.

A Hidden Life Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplementary material is included on this release, unfortunately.

A Hidden Life Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Stylistically, this is another tour de force for Malick, a director whose visionary tendencies can both fascinate but also alienate, and there is in fact a kind of weird distancing factor to A Hidden Life that the presentational aspects either intentionally or unintentionally foster. The story here is inherently moving, but for this particular viewer, I found the end result surprisingly lacking in emotion. That said, I was still consistently struck by the visuals and the sound design here, and the performances are effective throughout. Technical merits are solid, and for Malick lovers if for no one else, A Hidden Life comes Recommended.