From the ridiculous to the cinematic sublime
It has been a common denominator in this country for some time that when politics enters the equation so too does the bandying about of fascism when describing one’s opponents.
It’s ridiculous for reasons previously expounded upon at great length in this real estate, so I won’t retrace my steps — at least not this week — in response to the bombastic tirade readers of this fish wrap unfortunately were exposed to this past Sunday.
And so on to the sublime. Whereas last week I celebrated the birthdays of some of my favorite musical performers, I shall this week offer an appreciation of a true cinematic masterpiece, “A Hidden Life,” directed by Terrence Malick in 2019, and currently streaming on HBO.
The film takes its title from George Eliot’s novel “Middlemarch,” in which she wrote: “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.”
Malick applies this epigraph to the real-life martyr Franz Jagerstatter and his wife, Fani, Austrian farmers whose lives with their three young daughters are disrupted irrevocably when Worldwar II erupts. Franz is called up to serve, but is allowed to return home after France surrenders to Germany. When he is called up again, he refuses to pledge an oath to Hitler and will not fight. For these “treasons” he is jailed and … not much of a spoiler considering the Catholic Church beatified Jagerstatter a martyr, which can only mean one thing in such a context … is executed.
Some weeks ago, I coined the phrase “dystopian histories,” and “A Hidden Life” allows me to mint the phrase further. One moment, Franz, Fani and their immediate family are toiling on their farm, worshiping at their church, and enjoying their spiritual and pastoral existence; and the next moment history unleashes one of its most nightmarish scenarios.
Franz and Fani witnessed fascism firsthand in the real world of their farming village rather than the fever dream of a retired professor fervently banging his spoon against his metaphorical high chair. In other words, if your inclination is to toss around the word “fascism” like adolescent schoolboys flick popcorn from a moviehouse balcony, you haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.
And you don’t have to be Catholic to consider “A Hidden Life” a masterpiece. In fact, the clergy consulted by Franz all recommend he submit to the Nazi yoke in order to best serve his country, family and community. Unlike the U. S. World War II soldier in Mel Gibson’s “Hacksaw Ridge” who serves his country as a medic rather than as a soldier, however, Franz refuses to participate in any fashion with the obligations of his own conscription.
Among the brilliant choices Malick makes in his film is to excise long, didactic speeches. The viewer is left to discern through the film’s editing, cinematography, music and impeccable facial expressions what is happening inside characters’ heads. Much of the narrative is furthered in an epistolary fashion, with Franz and Fani reading their letters to each other in voiceovers
Speaking of acting, the cast is brilliant. August Diehl and Valerie Pachner as the Jagarstatters are both remarkable, with Diehl somewhat reminiscent of a young Max Von Sydow and, at times, Klaus Kinski.
The original music is composed by James Newton Howard, and is among one of the most beautiful scores in recent memory. Adding gravity to the soundtrack are pieces by Arvo Part, Henryk Gorecki, Antonin Dvorak, Bach, Beethoven and Handel.
In closing, disingenuously inflating today’s political arguments with charges of fascism is little more than humbuggery. We have the dystopian histories to prove it.