Act of conscience

Franz and Fani Jägerstätter delighted in each other. Their marriage was as full of light and life as their native Austria’s stunning landscape and as steadfast as the mountain towering over their valley village. Christian faith formed the bedrock of their commitment to each other, their three young daughters, and the daily tilling of soil on their small farm. Their life together was simple and sweet. What would make Franz willing to forsake it all?

The new film A Hidden Life, written and directed by two-time Oscar nominee Terrence Malick (The Thin Red Line and The Tree of Life), tells the true story of a man who dared to defy the Third Reich. Why, when Hollywood regularly banks on heroes of the Holocaust era, has the life of Franz Jägerstätter remained hidden for so long? And why is this film slated only for limited release?

The answer to both questions possibly lies in the primitiveness of Franz’s opposition: He answers a call to military training but refuses to swear an oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler. That’s it. Franz’s story, drawn from letters he and Fani exchanged while he was in prison, doesn’t match the intrigue of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s subversive activities or Oskar Schindler’s extraordinary tally of rescues.

Instead, Malick, an evangelically minded and famously reclusive director, loads up A Hidden Life with more Scripture than that found in many faith films.

“Darkness is not dark to You,” Franz prays in his prison cell, quoting Psalm 139. He follows with words from Psalm 18: “Father, to You I cry. My Rock, my Fortress … lead me.”

Another answer might be in the film’s length and pacing. At almost three hours, with no battle scenes but long stretches of dialogues and meditations—some arguably superfluous—A Hidden Life will test viewers’ patience. Rated PG-13, the film abstains from explicit language and sexual suggestiveness, as well as from much of the graphic horror of World War II. Most of the violence occurs off screen.

Gorgeous cinematography fills every shot, nearly hiding the protagonists’ distress in plain sight—a Malick calling card. But the lush visuals might also be forcible reminders of the temporal pleasures Franz (played by August Diehl) is ready to surrender in order to avoid doing “what I believe is wrong.”

Fani (Valerie Pachner) personifies courage, too. She perseveres while nearly everyone in the village, including the clergy, shuns her. As Nazi interrogators castigate her husband, sneering that “no one will be changed” by his act of defiance, she supports him.

“Whatever comes, I am with you always. Do what is right,” Fani reassures Franz during a prison visit. If he signs a statement of loyalty, he goes home. Otherwise, the guillotine awaits.

Fani prays to God for her husband as he counts the cost of each option: “You love him more than I do. Give him courage, wisdom, strength.”

A Hidden Life is a love story—about a husband and wife, about two faithful believers for their God. It’s also a filmmaker’s act of conscience to reveal a life that is worth living—and leaving behind.