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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJXmdY4lVR0 Terrence Malick is one of the US's most distinguished film artists, and like any other American auteur who rises above the rabble, he tends to fiercely divide audiences in reaction to his work. For my money, he's pretty loving good at what he does, with movies that emphasize breathtaking cinematography and philosophical introspection. His latest is A Hidden Life, which tells the true story of an Austrian man who refused to swear an oath to Hitler in the 1940s, bringing down a cavalcade of consequences on himself and his family. A lot of the film is structured around exploring the philosophical heart of this decision; what does it mean to oppose evil when it neither affects it nor helps you? I caught this flick last night and it had elements very typical of what he's done before: unbelievable imagery, classical music, ethereal dialogue, and an almost total disconnect from traditional emotional affectation. It's also the first movie with a script he's done in a long time, and I think it's to its benefit. It's a masterful blending of intellectual notions with poetic ones, and at three hours, it is an exhausting viewing experience. I think it's Malick's best film since Tree of Life. If he's your guy, it's essential viewing. If he's not, this will not change your opinion. It's out in a couple days everywhere in the US. I wanna talk about it so somebody watch it, for the love of God. Kull the Conqueror fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Dec 12, 2019 |
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Dec 11, 2019 20:49
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This sounds like something I'd enjoy. If I do go see it, I'll come back and talk to you about it.
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Dec 12, 2019 18:32
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I like the poster op, good textures
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Dec 12, 2019 23:49
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No giant robots or comic book characters? Pass.
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Dec 13, 2019 18:07
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(days of heaven is my favorite movie)
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Dec 13, 2019 18:08
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Excited to openly weep a minimum of two times in the theater
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Dec 13, 2019 19:11
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Finally got to see it this weekend, as penance for seeing CATS. I'm a huge Malick fanboy so it's no surprise that I loved it. I'd agree that it's his best since The Tree of Life, but I've enjoyed his "weird" movies since then so I'm not going to say it's a return to form but I can see it being that way for those who were cold on To the Wonder, Knight of Cups, and Song to Song. The structure, length and feel reminded me most of the extended cut of The New World, but with the formal qualities he's been developing since then. I felt lots of influences from other films in this, more so than his previous releases. Elements and imagery from The Passion of Joan of Arc, A Man Escaped, Paths of Glory, Hunger, Miklós Jancsó's The Round-Up, and Scorsese's Silence. The stylistic presentation of violence in the prison scenes felt new; all done in rapid quick-cuts in the middle of the surrounding scenes, which robs the violence of having any sense of catharsis or finality and instead add to the sickening and inescapable atmosphere of that environment. The scenery and production design all looked great; Malick has an ability to remove the feeling of cinematic artifice better than any other modern filmmaker. And props to the casting director for casting the European versions of Timothy Carey and Joaquin Phoenix who each had memorable scenes. It's his most overtly religious film, with the protagonist's faith being central to the plot and all the sidetracks that are taken. The brief sequence with Franz and the church painter was the stand out part from my first viewing. You definitely feel its length compared to a film edited like The Irishman, and it's an exhausting experience, but I'm a cinematic masochist who doesn't see these as negatives so, again, I'm biased here. And of course, it looks incredible and the score is lovely. I'd recommend it if you've liked any of his previous work.
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Dec 23, 2019 07:33
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3 hours long, ww2/nazi subject matter...but..malick..gahhhhh. I bought tickets for the 1st, will update with thoughts.
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Dec 30, 2019 19:14
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As much as it pains me, I gotta say I thought this was pretty disappointing. I say this as someone who ranks Tree of Life among the best films of the decade, and I saw it in theaters I think 4 times? Despite having an almost identical run time, A Hidden Life's pacing honestly feels kind of self-indulgent and it ends up being genuinely grueling - I watched Satantango recently, and of the two, this one felt longer. Part of it is that most of the film feels a bit...shallow, I guess? It's extremely clear which answer to the moral question is "correct," and the themes are, in several instances, relayed through pretty naked exposition - there's also multiple scenes where these bits of exposition are repeated by another character almost verbatim. The conflict at its core just feels weirdly flat. Maybe I'm alone in this but I thought Fani was a more interesting character than Franz, but she ultimately ends up feeling more like a sketch - there's little sense of interiority, which is bizarre since I'd argue that of the two, she's the one closer to living the kind of "hidden life" that Eliot's quote is referring to in the first place.. I know Malick is almost obsessively interested in exploring characters through outward expression alone, but I don't think it quite works here. That being said - the movie is absolutely gorgeous, the score is excellent, and the way he uses the camera to so intimately follow characters that it almost feels like a home movie at times is pretty much unparalleled. The editing is really interesting too - it has a very dislocated feeling, with tons of mirrored and reversed framing and a very cool use of quick cuts to express emotion. The church painter scene is my favorite part of the movie I think, but I don't think anything else really quite manages to match it. I don't regret seeing it or anything, but it feels like pretty mid-tier work from him. Part of what I loved about Tree of Life was the way he managed to capture the authentic texture of family life in a way that very few directors can even grasp at, but that element felt greatly diminished here.
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Dec 30, 2019 22:55
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I saw this last night. Saying it's his best since The Tree of Life (which is one of my favorite films ever), while true, is pretty faint praise, because his last three were incredibly meandering, formless, and emotionally cold montages in search of a movie. I still maintain that To The Wonder could've been a Bergmanesque masterpiece if he had only made it about Javier Bardem's character, but eh. A Hidden Life has more of a backbone of a story than those, but it's still a thin line to hang his self indulgent and repetitive stylings on, and is far more loose than something like The New World. It's still so improvisational, you can feel Malick's only directions for a scene being "Ok, you're in love. Ok, play, maybe do something with those buckets of water. Ok now you're upset, Stare pensively, etc" but otherwise just letting the actors gently caress around a lot. This might be the most pure form of filmmaking as a photographic medium, but I often longed for characters to have a simple back-and-forth conversation. Instead, one character would say two or three unscripted sentences and the other would either smile or frown or look down or away, but never reply (It happens constantly, so I guarantee Malick instructed people to not verbally respond to other characters speaking). I don't recall the main couple ever having a conversation where both of them spoke at all. It was so refreshing when Franz had the scene with Bruno Ganz, and I realized it was because he actually replied to his questions. Another thing that frustrates me about Malick's modern style is the particular way it fucks with my movie-watching-brain's expectations. Typically in a movie, when we're in a scene and the music and image fades to black, then we hear the natural sound of the environment as a new establishing shot pops up, it means that a new scene is about to happen. You're primed for a conversation to take place, or an event to occur that moves the narrative along and keeps you engaged in the characters and what happens to them. Instead, we get perfectly constructed establishing shots that immediately cut to a different time, or a montage of someone waking in a hallway, or imagery of a church ceiling, someone rolling in hay again, etc which then all leads to another fade out and then another establishing shot that again establishes nothing. I don't typically mind movies without narrative structure at all, but the specific way he does this trick so consistently, it's either he's deliberately using the viewers expectations against them, or he's utilizing one of the few remnants of traditional narrative filmmaking technique he has left out of some kind of habit, but without the followthrough. Either way, it's the film watching equivalent of major blue balls. It's like that bit from Cremaster 3 when Agnostic Front and Murphy's Law are having a battle of the bands in the Guggenheim, and both bands are just doing the count-off and buildup but never actually start the songs. So yeah, it's got a story that might have more built in emotional weight due to the subject matter, as say compared to the riveting story of Ben Affleck moving his hot European wife to his hayseed hometown in the states and wondering why his marriage is falling apart, but this is still firmly Malick shooting tons of beautiful repetitive improvisational footage and constructing a movie out of it. It's not bad, but if you're burned out on this period in his career, I don't think this will change your mind. It's got a ton of fuckin great farming porn, though.
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Dec 31, 2019 19:04
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Here's my thoughts, crossposted from my letterboxd (i gave it 3.5/5)quote:Spoiler free reviews are rough but I'm trying...also feel free to skip to the TLDR cuz..words.
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Jan 2, 2020 20:16
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:Maybe I'm alone in this but I thought Fani was a more interesting character than Franz, but she ultimately ends up feeling more like a sketch - there's little sense of interiority, which is bizarre since I'd argue that of the two, she's the one closer to living the kind of "hidden life" that Eliot's quote is referring to in the first place.. I know Malick is almost obsessively interested in exploring characters through outward expression alone, but I don't think it quite works here. You know, I got more and more upset after the movie, thinking this crazy man died for absolutely nothing, helping nobody, leaving his family behind, only then for decades later this film to end with the quote: quote:“..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.” So he died for us, for the audience and all the survivors to feel good about themselves, that there was some good there after all. I felt dirty. Your spoiler text really makes me less upset, so thank you for that. What a movie. Nroo posted:And props to the casting director for casting the European versions of Timothy Carey and Joaquin Phoenix who each had memorable scenes. Out of interest, who are you talking about? married but discreet fucked around with this message at 15:07 on Jan 3, 2020 |
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Jan 3, 2020 04:58
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married but discreet posted:Out of interest, who are you talking about? The two guys in the prison, the one who ranted about how god abandoned him and the friend from back in military training, respectively.
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Jan 3, 2020 18:28
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:As much as it pains me, I gotta say I thought this was pretty disappointing. I say this as someone who ranks Tree of Life among the best films of the decade, and I saw it in theaters I think 4 times? Despite having an almost identical run time, A Hidden Life's pacing honestly feels kind of self-indulgent and it ends up being genuinely grueling - I watched Satantango recently, and of the two, this one felt longer. Their lives were an endless parade of ostracization and the same advice given over and over. We experience this directly by being subjected to their repeated experiences. The grueling nature of the runtime and pacing emulates Franz's literal and Fani's emotional captivity.
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Jan 5, 2020 14:32
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"Watching this is like being trapped in a Nazi prison" is generally a negative assessment but not in this specific case. It does make the movie a hard sell, though.
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Jan 5, 2020 14:33
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