Rated PG-13 for thematic material including violent images. Jägerstätter may have led a “hidden” life, out of the spotlight, but his quiet action has inspired millions. We then see him quoting Psalm 23 and praying. If you swear allegiance to Hitler and agree to serve in a military hospital – Jägerstätter is told – they will drop the charges. Late in the movie, Jägerstätter’s attorney sits across from him in the prison, pleading for him to change his mind. Would we have the courage and conviction to oppose everyone around us? Would we be willing to die for what is right? And is our faith strong enough to help us persevere in such a trial? You feel like you’re there, in Austria, watching a gut-wrenching tragedy unfold.Ī Hidden Life forces us to look inward and reflect on our own beliefs. The movie has the look of an award-winning film but the realism of a well-done documentary. The film is beautiful, but it’s also long (the running time is nearly three hours). Scenes that would last only a few seconds in other films span a couple of minutes in A Hidden Life. Lengthy shots of awe-inspiring Austrian landscapes are coupled with prolonged views of farmers working in the fields. “If we are faithful to Him,” she says, “He will be faithful to us.”Ī Hidden Life features the visual storytelling that makes Malick’s films so unique. His wife stands by his side, grieved by what is to come but comforted knowing they are following God’s will. In a village where citizens harvest the fields and share the bounty, his opposition to Hitler is no small matter. It’s a stance that endangers his life and costs him life-long friends, too. Jägerstätter, though, decides he would rather obey God than men ( Acts 5:29). “You have a duty to the fatherland,” the bishop replies. If our leaders are not good, if they’re evil, what does one do? I want to save my life, but not through lies.” “If God gives us free will, we’re responsible for what we do,” the farmer tells the bishop. Not happy with the priest’s answer, Jägerstätter meets the bishop. The priest, though, encourages him to join the Nazis. When the village’s mayor delivers a public pro-Nazi speech to cheers and lambastes the “other races,” Jägerstätter quietly walks away, appalled by what he’s hearing.Įventually, he tells his priest, “We’re killing innocent people, raiding other countries, preying on the weak.” “But I cannot believe that, just because one has a wife and children, a man is free to offend God.”Ī Hidden Life depicts Jägerstätter as a man of faith who is driven to follow God’s will, no matter the cost. “People worry about the obligations of conscience as they concern my wife and children,” he said shortly before his execution via guillotine. His execution meant he left behind a wife – they were married just a few years earlier, in 1936 – and children. Eventually, he became convinced that the war was evil. In 1938, he was the only local citizen to vote against Germany’s annexation of Austria, according to a Vatican biography. The film tells the real-life story of Franz Jägerstätter, a farmer who was growing deeper in his faith in the 1930s while most of his countrymen were warming to Nazism. Here are four things you should know about A Hidden Life: It’s one of the best movies of 2019 and was directed by Terrence Malick ( The Tree of Life). It’s all part of the new film A Hidden Life (PG-13), which tells the inspiring tale of a Catholic man who refuses to fight for Hitler’s army and pays the ultimate price for his opposition. “What’s happened to our country – to the land we love?” he asks his wife. If there is a good side in the war – he says – it’s not the Nazis. He views Nazi leader Adolf Hitler as evil. The year is 1939, and even though the war is popular within his village, Franz opposes it. He’s been drafted by the Nazis to serve in a quickly expanding war. Soon, though, the world’s problems come to his doorstep when he receives a life-changing letter in the mail. In the village he lives – a picturesque valley resting between snow-capped mountains – the world’s problems seem light years away. Franz is a hard-working Austrian farmer who loves his family and is devoted to his faith.
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