Always Good Movies

Direction: Terrence Malick
Country: USA

After a couple of trivial drifting practices (Knight of Cups; Song to Song), director Terrence Malick returns with A Hidden Life, a structurally solid WWII account based on the real-life story of Austrian pacifist farmer Franz Jägerstätter. Refusing to swear loyalty to the Nazi regime, whose principles go entirely against his Catholic and moral ideals, Franz (August Diehl) is incarcerated at Tegel prison in Berlin, tortured, and then sentenced to death. Unintentionally, he’s making the life of his beloved wife, Fani (Valerie Pachner), a living hell. It’s because the people of St. Radegund, their small Austrian village, not understanding why Franz rejects his duties to the fatherland, cease to assist Fani in the heavy work in the fields. Notwithstanding, the latter’s unconditional support of her husband’s cause is laudable.

Franz asks the bishop of Salzburg (Michael Nyqvist): “If leaders are evil, what do we do?”. Considered a traitor, this man and his brave wife will endure years of solitude, emptiness, and misery. Their existential questions - “God, why am I here? Why did you create us?” - are articulated with that inner-centered, melancholic voice-off so typical of Malick’s deliberate style, while the visuals, preserving some of the oneiric aura of his previous works, offer something new in the hands of camera operator-turned-cinematographer, Jorg Vidmer. However, clocking in at nearly three hours, the film is exhaustingly overlong, with Malick taking too much time detailing a canvas that could have been painted with less brushstrokes. This setback is somewhat compensated with an accessible, less subjective script.

Opting for a non-exploitative presentation, Malick gets it right in the end, but at the expense of a lot of patience from the viewers. A Hidden Life is disconcerting both for the right and the wrong reasons.

Directed by Terrence Malick
Country: USA / France / Germany

The philosophical viewpoint about the origins and meaning of life by the respected American director Terrence Malick can be truly awesome or extremely boring, depending on your ability to deal with the material. If the fictional existential drama “The Tree of Life” was a deeply intimate experience, his documentary “Voyage of Time: Life’s Journey”, despite graphically stunning, got me twisting in my seat from boredom and melancholy.

The imagery is a collage of interspersed segments that comprises animal activity in its most diverse forms, jaw-dropping landscapes in its pristine beauty, colorful cosmic flare-ups such as the Big Bang, a few extravagant prehistoric fantasies, and variegated human interaction that sometimes feels tense and depressing in its cruel reality, and other times joyful and peaceful regardless the backdrop.

The experimental posture allied with the sparse and humdrum narration by Cate Blanchett, whose physical presence is far more pungent than her voice, made me fall into a somnolent state. The poetic intonations are so characteristic of the filmmaker’s late works, and identical word cadences can be found in “To the Wonder” and “Knight of Cups”. The same is valid for the typical dreamlike atmosphere that worked at some point, but becomes tedious along the way.

Metaphysical questions are uttered softly and monotonously: “Nature, who am I to you?”, “Mother, where are you? Where have you gone?”, “So much joy! Why not always?", while the parsimonious answers are of the following kind: “Life. Restless. Unsatisfied.”
I believe that Malick’s insistence on sounding theoretical and composed is starting to divide his fans. His filmmaking signature and patterned methodology are unique, and yet, I miss that fluid line of thought that turned “The Tree of Life” and “The Thin Red Line” into dramas of choice.

In a stoic way, dream and reality mix to take us on a voyage that doesn’t add absolutely anything to what we are, think, or feel about nature and our existence.
The director devised another version of the film for Imax, shortened to 45 minutes and narrated by Brad Pitt. By taking into account this theatrical stumble and the crushing disappointment that came with it, I’m reluctant in checking out the alternative version.