A Hidden Life

A Hidden Life / Ein verborgenes Leben. Valerie Pachner (Franziska Jägerstätter), August Diehl (Franz Jägerstätter).

Ein verborgenes Leben.
    DE/US 2019.
    An Elizabeth Bay Productions Presentation. In Association with Aceway and Mister Smith. A Studio Babelsberg Production.
    P: Grant Hill, Dario Bergesio, Josh Jeter, Elisabeth Bentley. EX: Marcus Loges, Adam Morgan, Bill Pohlad, Yi Wei, Christoph Fisser, Henning Molfenter, Charlie Woebecken.
    D+SC: Terrence Malick. DP: Jörg Widmer – colour – 2,35:1 – source format: 6K – 7K for winter scenes – master format: 4K – release format: D-Cinema. Newsreel inserts in b&w and colour and in 1,33:1. PD: Sebastian T. Krawinkel. Cost: Lisy Christl. M: James Newton Howard. ED: Rehman Nizar Ali, Joe Gleason, Sebastian Jones. Casting: Anja Dihrberg.
    M selections include:
– Händel: Israel in Egypt, HWV 54 / Pt. 1: Exodus.
– Arvo Pärt: Tabula rasa: II. Silentium
– Antonín Dvořák: Ceska suita in D Major, Op. 39
– Henryk Górecki: Male requiem dla pwenej polki, Op. 66
– P. I. Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 "Pathétique"
– Max Richter: On the Nature of Daylight
– Johannes Brahms: Serenade No. 1 in D Major, Op. 11
– Antonio Vivaldi: Sinfonia in B Minor, RV 169 "Al santo sepolcro"
– W. A. Mozart: Requiem in D Minor
– Henryk Górecki: Symphony No. 3 "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs"
– Franz Schubert: Four impromptus, Op. 90, D. 899
– Edward Elgar: "Salut d'amour", op. 12
– Ernest Bloch: From Jewish Life, B. 55
– Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 3
– Gabriel Fauré: Pavane, Op. 50
– Gabriel Fauré: Cantique de Jean Racine
– Philip Glass: Facades
– Dmitri Shostakovich: Piano Concerto No. 2
    C: August Diehl (Franz Jägerstätter), Valerie Pachner (Franziska / Fani Jägerstätter), Maria Simon (Resie, Fani's sister), Tobias Moretti (Fr. Ferdinand Fürthauer), Bruno Ganz (Judge Werner Lueben), Matthias Schoenaerts (Captain Herder), Karin Neuhäuser (Rosalia Jägerstätter), Ulrich Matthes (Lorenz Schwaninger, Fani's father), Martin Wuttke (Major Kiel), Michael Nyqvist (Bishop Joseph Fliessen), Jürgen Prochnow (Major Schlegel).
    Studio: Studio Babelsberg (Potsdam).
    Loc: St. Radegund (Austria), Sappada (Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy), Brixen, Dietenheim (South Tyrol, Italy). Prison scenes: Zittau, Tegel (Berlin), Hoheneck (near Dresden). Court trial scene: Kammergericht building (Schöneberg, Berlin). Shot in 2016.
    174 min
    Language: English.
    Festival premiere: 19 May 2019 Cannes Film Festival.
    Finnish premiere: 7 February 2020 – released by SF Studios – with Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Frej Grönholm / Jennifer Warrender.
    DCP viewed at Maxim 2, Helsinki, 8 Feb 2020.

Official synopsis: "Based on real events, A Hidden Life is the story of an unsung hero, Franz Jägerstätter, who refused to fight for the Nazis in World War II. When the Austrian peasant farmer is faced with the threat of execution for treason, it is his unwavering faith and his love for his wife, Fani, and children that keeps his spirit alive."

AA: A Hidden Life, directed by Terrence Malick, and shot on location on the Alps, is a true life story of an Austrian farmer, Franz Jägerstätter, who became a conscientious objector. He refused to swear the oath to Hitler in WWII.

As usual in Malick, there is a sense of the pastoral, at times almost a touch of pantheism. A Hidden Life is a religious film, and the elevated locations fit the religious themes perfectly: "we lived above the clouds". Malick's work has always been linked with transcendentalism (Emerson, Thoreau), and in this story he finds fresh inspiration for his quest.

A Hidden Life is a Christian story with Franz Jägerstätter himself a Christ figure. His encounters with the officials of the church bring to mind Ernst Lubitsch's The Man I Killed: "son, you only did your duty". The dialogues evoke the temptation of Christ, the ingenious arguments of Satan. "Is it pride? Are you better than the rest?" "We all have blood on our hands". "He created evil". "Conscience makes cowards of us all". "Sign and you'll be free", Franz is told. "I am free", he answers.

During his tour of Nazi prisons Franz realizes that there is no way out. As soon as he gives up, "a new light comes forth". "Now you have all you need". He is kind to others and lets them share his food. The wardens reward him by brutally kicking and beating him.

A Hidden Life brings fresh blood to the perennial German film genres of Heimatfilm and Bergfilm. Sometimes they have been linked with conventional and even reactionary nostalgia (in the 1950s) and with the Nazi ideology of Blut und Boden (in the 1930s and 1940s). But the genres are bigger than that, and even Sound of Music, with its anti-Nazi stance, can be found relevant in the context.

One of the foundation works of the phenomenon is Wilhelmine von Hillern's novel Die Geier-Wally (1873) with several film adaptations across various historical periods of Germany. Let's also remember Ernst Lubitch's fascination with the genre both in Germany and Hollywood (Eternal Love / Edelweiss).

Arnold Fanck, Luis Trenker and Leni Riefenstahl belonged to the masters of the genre. Siegfried Kracauer interpreted their mystic reveries in terms of ideological criticism, but Terrence Malick uses an identical imagery of the sublime (breathtaking mountains, waterfalls, ascents beyond clouds) to express a reverse ideology of peace and love. Like in the films of Bresson and Kaurismäki, the wind is God's breath.

It is uncanny, though, that we are so close Hitler, not far from where he was born, and not far from Obersalzberg (Berchtesgaden, Berghof, Kehlsteinhaus). "Auf der Alm, da gibt’s ka Sünd"? ["No Sin on the Alpine Pastures"]?

What to do when leaders are evil? Church bells are forged to bullets, priests are sent to concentration camps, and religious processions are banned. "Someday I'll paint the true Christ", promises Franz's friend, the church painter. Michael Nyqvist interprets the demanding role of the bishop who instead of God serves Hitler. After the war, Franz Jägerstätter was declared a martyr and beatified by the Catholic Church.

A parallel process takes place in the legal system. Again, Franz is being persuaded that nobody is being helped by his stance, and nobody is even aware of it. "Do you judge me?" asks judge Lueben. "I can't do what I believe is wrong", says Franz. "Do you have a right to do this?" asks Lueben. "Do I have a right not to?" It is not mentioned in the film, but next year Werner Lueben committed suicide. In the movie he is interpreted with stooped gravity by Bruno Ganz in his final role.

The ordeal of the family in their native Radegund is as crushing as Franz's experience in the machinery of the clerical and legal systems. The Jägerstätters are the only ones who refuse to participate in the Nazi order. They are isolated, harassed, bullied and marginalized. Even children participate. A Hidden Life is a powerful dramatization of peer pressure, the pressure of conformity. But there is a subtle change when we reach the year 1943. More people are beginning to understand. Malick conveys these changes with meaningful looks and gestures.

Above all, A Hidden Life is a love story. "You looked at me and I knew", we learn in the beginning. "Whatever comes I'm with you always" and "I'll meet you there in the mountains" are among the final words.

It's a rewarding film, and because of the magnificent cinematography in scope it should be seen in a cinema. The photography is truly wonderful. Together with his DP Jörg Widmer Malick paints with light. Their way of framing close-ups and medium shots in scope is fresh and original. I do register the digital quality; digital is still getting better.

At almost three hours it's too much of the good thing. The film would lose nothing and gain a lot if it were an hour shorter.

I thank Olaf Möller for recommending A Hidden Life. I had already resigned to thinking that I have seen too much Malick*, but he is at his best in this movie which has all his strengths and much that is fresh to boot.

* I last saw To the Wonder / À la Merveille (2012).

Die Geier-Wally (Germany 1921), D: E. A. Dupont, starring Henny Porten.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: MATERIAL FROM THE PRESSBOOK:
BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: MATERIAL FROM THE PRESSBOOK:

MOTTO

“... for 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.” —George Eliot

SHORT SYNOPSIS

A Hidden Life follows the real-life story of Austrian peasant farmer Franz Jägerstätter (August Diehl) who refuses to fight for the Nazis in World War II.

Born and bred in the small village of St. Radegund, Jägerstätter is working his land when war breaks out. Married to Franziska (Fani) (Valerie Pachner), the couple are important members of the tight-knit rural community. They live a simple life with the passing years marked by the arrival of  the couple’s three girls.

Franz is called up to basic training and is away from his beloved wife and children for months. Eventually, when France surrenders and it seems the war might end soon, he is sent back from training. With his mother and sister-in-law Resi, he and his wife farm the land and raise their children amid the mountains and valleys of  upper Austria.

As the war goes on, Jägerstätter and the other able-bodied men in the village are called up to fight. Their first requirement is to swear an oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler and the 3rd Reich. Despite the pleas of his neighbors, Jägerstätter refuses.  Wrestling with the knowledge that his decision will mean arrest and even death, Jägerstätter finds strength in Fani’s love and support. Jägerstätter is taken to prison, first in Enns, then in Berlin and waits months for his trial.

During his time in prison, he and Fani write letters to one another and give each other strength. Fani and their daughters are victims of growing hostility in the village over her husband’s decision not to fight. After months of  brutal incarceration, his case goes to trial. He is found guilty and sentenced to death.

Despite many opportunities to sign the oath of  allegiance, Jägerstätter continues to stand up for his beliefs and is executed by the Third Reich in August 1943, while his wife and three daughters survive.

ORIGINS

A Hidden Life is based on the life of  Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian farmer who refused to take the oath of  allegiance to Hitler. In August 1943, he was executed for his defiance in a garage at Berlin’s Brandenburg Prison.

The picture draws on his exchange of  letters with his wife Franziska, or Fani, edited by Erna Putz and published in English by Orbis Books.

The story was little known outside St. Radegund, and might never have been discovered, were it not for the research of  Gordon Zahn, an American, who visited the village in the 1970s.

The title card at the end of the picture comes from the final sentence of George Eliot’s Middlemarch.

LOCATIONS

The Jägerstätters lived in St. Radegund, a small village of  500 people in Upper Austria, near Salzburg and the German border–in the same province where Hitler was born and spent his early youth–not far from Berchtesgaden, his mountain retreat during his years as head of  the German state.

Shot in eight weeks in July and August of  2016, the production spent 24 days in South Tyrol, the northernmost province of  Italy, then moved into Austria itself, shooting for a few days in St. Radegund itself.  For the prison scenes, the production spent the last 14 days in Zittau (7) and Berlin (7), Germany.

Supervising art director Steve Summersgill says the locations were carefully selected for their texture, authenticity and visual scope.

“Most importantly we learned that the natural light levels were very much part of  the decision-making process as to whether or not a certain location may or may not work,” Summersgill says.

The film shot in churches and cathedrals, farms with real live stock, orchards, up mountains, in fields and along rural pathways. “Nature and the natural environment were part of  the subtext and the locations provided us with a foundation to build up from,” says Summersgill.

Production designer Sebastian Krawinkel carried out research on Franz Jägerstätter and the important places in his life, consulting letters and archive materials.

“We scouted some of  the locations together a year in advance in order to see them in the right season,” says Krawinkel. “For almost a year I had a weekly dialogue with Terry about which sets he would need and which locations and references he liked.”

The production prepped in spring and shot in the summer. Two seasons were captured with a small splinter unit that came back to the locations later in the year, led by cinematographer and long-time Malick crew member Joerg Widmer.

The historic background of the story required the production to avoid modern buildings and signs of contemporary civilisation.

“We were fortunate to be able to shoot inside a working mill, a working blacksmith’s shop and several real prisons,” notes Krawinkel.

One of  the prisons used was Hoheneck, the notorious Stasi prison near Dresden, notorious for its inhumane conditions.

Another shot shows the exterior of  Tegel prison as it stood in the Jägerstätter’s day. It is still a working prison, so the production was obliged to shoot the Tegel interiors elsewhere.

A few scenes were shot in the St. Radegund locations where the events depicted actually took place–including certain interiors of  the Jägerstätter house, which has over the years become a pilgrimage site, as well as by the Salzach river near St. Radegund and in the woods below the house.

The clock visible on the wall of  the Jägerstätter living room is the one that Fani was listening to when, at 4 in the afternoon on August 9, 1943, at the very hour of Franz’s execution, she remembered feeling her husband’s presence.

The bedroom is theirs and looks as it did then. Her embroidery still hangs on the walls. Franz and Fani’s three daughters–Maria, Rosalia and Aloisa–live in, or near, St. Radegund. Fani passed away in 2013, aged 100.

Valerie Pachner, the actress who plays Fani, grew up in the same province 40 miles away.

A few scenes were set at the farmhouse of  a Jägerstätter friend and neighbor, Eckinger.

Today, the fields around St. Radegund are covered in corn, a crop that was not grown at the time, as well as with power lines and modern houses, some immediately adjacent to the Jägerstätter’s own. As a result, the production was obliged to go higher up into the mountains than where the village itself  lies.

The production also filmed the 3rd Reich Berlin court trial scene in Schoenberg in the infamous Kammergericht building. “It was scary to be inside the real courtroom where the Nazis sentenced so many to death,” Krawinkel notes.

When, the following year, Lueben, the principal judge in Franz’s case (played by Bruno Ganz), was asked to condemn three priests from Stettin as he had Franz, he chose instead to commit suicide.

LIGHT AND DARK

The team had to be small, agile and flexible. “Changing lighting conditions required a continuous attention for stop changes to ensure proper exposure,” explains cinematographer Widmer.

Widmer agreed with Malick to use artificial lights only on rare occasions.

For all the other sets, including the prison cells, the team simply used the right time of  the day to shoot it until they lost the light.

“The barns were always shot when the openings of  the buildings provided sunlight or at least brightness,” says Widmer.

The team only had to change the shooting schedule once: When the weather forecasters said it wasn’t going to be sunny on the day they planned to shoot the interior of  the water mill.

“Terry ́s dogma was ‘the sun is our gaffer’. Morning shoot towards East, afternoon shoot towards the west. Never look north,” says Krawinkel.

The production was shot digitally on the Red Epic Dragon camera system. The camera was selected for its ability to handle stark contrast within a scene, preserving details in both the highlights and shadows of  the image, while still maintaining realistic color.

“We were prepared to keep the camera gear small,” says Widmer. “The lighting gear consisted mostly of  bounce boards and blacks.”