7.7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
The Austrian Franz Jägerstätter, a conscientious objector, refuses to fight for the Nazis in World War II.
Starring: August Diehl, Matthias Schoenaerts, Michael Nyqvist, Jürgen Prochnow, Bruno GanzForeign | 100% |
Drama | 87% |
Biography | 19% |
War | 15% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps)
English SDH, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Digital copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
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.
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 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.
No supplementary material is included on this release, unfortunately.
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.
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