One of those films that never seems to end: A Hidden Life reviewed

Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life is a historical drama based on the true story of Franz Jäggerstätter, an Austrian who refused to fight for the Nazis in the second world war and was later beatified by the Catholic church. It isn’t peak Malick as it’s linear rather than associative — let’s not pretend we aren’t mightily relieved — but otherwise it’s business as usual in the sense that it’s visually beautiful, poetic, philosophical, theological and slowly, slowly, slowly meditative. In fact, it’s so slowly, slowly, slowly meditative it’s one of those films that feels as if it’s been playing for ever when there is still an hour to go. As such, you may even be moved to ask some philosophical questions yourself — how can this be? — and do your own praying, as in: dear God, is this ever going to end?

The film does have a certain cumulative power and isn’t a total waste of three hours (or two hours plus another yet to go, amazingly). But it is long-winded and meandering. It opens in the Austrian countryside in 1939 and, of course, the splendour of the landscape is evoked. The mountains. The streams. The apple trees. The golden wheat fields. The chirping birds. The mountains again. (And again! And again!) Nature always takes centre stage in Malick’s films, with humans tentatively edging their way in, and here the humans are Franz (August Diehl) and his wife Fani (Valerie Pachner). The pair, who speak English to each other, inexplicably, are based in a small, tight-knit village where they work their land and live a simple life — that said, her wardrobe would cost a bomb at Toast today — and are happy.