A legendary director returns to form
A HIDDEN LIFE I Terrence Malick tills the soil and rakes the soul in a ravishing return to form…
Malick’s lost his mojo. That’s been the consensus gaining traction in the last seven years, as To The Wonder, Knight Of Cups and Song To Song – a trio of flimsy, flyaway movies on love and relationships – have seen his tics begin to stick and his tropes tire. The singular master who gave us Badlands, The Thin Red Line and The Tree Of Life has become a pastiche of himself.
Happily, A Hidden Life puts that one to bed. It is based on the real story of Franz Jägerstätter (August Diehl), an Austrian farmer who refused to fight in the Wehrmacht in World War Two. His conscientious objection based on spiritual beliefs, made pariahs of both himself and his wife, Franziska (Valerie Pachner), in their Edenic rural community, and everyone quivered in fear as they awaited the Nazis’ inevitable visit.
“Terry would say, ‘We have to catch moments,’” says Diehl, confirming that Malick practised his signature freeform shooting style despite A Hidden Life possessing a much stronger narrative thread than his last three pictures. “He’d say, ‘Today we are filming the scene where the first doubt is coming. If you ever feel it, you can say the line. But if you don’t feel it, then don’t. Or just think it.’”
“There were no breaks,” adds Pachner, telling us how Malick and director of photography Jörg Widmer shot in continuous 28-minute takes, from dawn to dusk. “Even when you’re just sitting somewhere, Terry would be like, ‘Oh look!’ and he’d shoot you sitting.” Diehl nods. “He’d repeat the scene until you stop acting. And this is the moment he’s looking for.”
Diehl – who’s perhaps best known for playing the Nazi who questions Michael Fassbender’s accent in Inglourious Basterds – and Pachner won their roles by auditioning for a casting agent in Berlin. But when they met Malick, they found him accessible, as Pachner puts it: “No small talk. He immediately started talking about the world and life itself.” They both adored the experience of working with Malick. But while A Hidden Life deals with big themes – Franz asks the achingly relevant question, “If our leaders are evil, what are we to do?” – they insist that everyone’s biggest concern was to locate the quotidian.
“They had a very simple love, they were not intellectuals,” says Diehl of Franz and Franziska. Pachner agrees, explaining, “Their decision doesn’t come from an intellectual place, it’s a feeling.” And though she says you can sense the spiritualism at work when you watch the film, she explains the cast merely concentrated on the work. “It was tough,” she smiles. “We were really doing farm work all day. Raking, scything, milking the cow, picking apples. And in between, we had the conversations!”
ETA | 17 JANUARY / A HIDDEN LIFE OPENS NEXT YEAR.