A Journey to Infinite
“…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 owning to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs” — George Eliot
In our daily life, we are constantly faced with these different situations in which we have to choose between doing the right thing or the easy thing. Sometimes it’s easy to do the right thing, and sometimes, it can be pretty tricky. But the bigger question that we are faced with is: How far are we willing to go? How much are we willing to sacrifice for what we believe is right? A Hidden Life is the title of famed director Terrence Malick’s last film. And it’s one of those films that seems very simple on the outside. The narration doesn’t have many plot points, the characters don’t have any ambiguous and complicated plans, and the situation is straightforward and straightforward; you may even get bored during its 174 min. runtime and say to yourself, “come on, Terrence, I could tell this story in 30 minutes,” but that’s well… just the outside.
The story follows Franz, head of a modest family in an Austrian Village. They lead a simple life as a family which is full of love. In the beginning, it seems nothing can disturb this peaceful aura that has surrounded Franz and his family. Their problems are narrowed down to earning a living and keeping the family healthy…but then comes World War II. A war that has nothing to do with them and their simple village life, even if it does, is only of an ideological nature. Under this ideology, all village men have to and are expected to co-operate, fight for, and share their resources with their ally, Nazi Germany. But, according to his personal ethics, Franz refuses to engage in war and bloodshed. Not to forget his loyal wife, who supports her husband’s decision in the hardships that are to follow. A decision that is condemned by the masses, even the small village society. Beneath this simple plot lies Malick’s rich spiritual subtext. I say “spiritual,” not religious, because religion is represented as the church. Here we’re talking about a metaphysical, infinite being that makes a man suffer and reach for redemption. According to Soren Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher from the 19th century, human being lives and makes their decisions under three rubrics: the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious.
In a life based on aesthetics, a person lives by and decides according to his human needs of pleasure, comfort, and survival. Enjoying life comes first. A person living by ethics lives by and determines based on the norms and expectations of the time and society he/she/they lives. Every community has a set of objective rules that are claimed to be the truth and the only reasonable and just way to live. These rules are usually written and made clear by the government, religion, family, or any other party that has power over the person. Then Kierkegaard talks about a third way, religious, or as said before, the spiritual practice of living. Here, the person acts based on the infinite sources of his being. His ethics are not objective and outside of him, but he, as an infinite being, has to decide and act based on his judgment in the specific situation. A kind of subjective moral which can’t be spoken as a set of rules for every situation but comes from the heart based on the exact moment and situation the person is going through. The central subtextual conflict of the film is this decision based on faith.
Every logical reason, religious institution meaning the church and social norm, goes against Franz’s decision. Society expects him to join his brothers in arms and fight for the motherland. There is even a more substantial reason for Franz to join the war: His and his family’s welfare and survival. As Kierkegaard asks Abraham when he was supposed to kill his son, one may ask Franz: What in the world is more precious than your family’s life? But the man of faith doesn’t act according to reason. His criteria are his Godly conscience and his infinite being. Franz’s journey resembles the journey of Jesus Christ.
As soon as he decides, his passion begins, and like Jesus, his primary suffering is not of physical origin but, in his mind, doubt is his pain. The path of faith is carved out of pain and suffering because the finite body acts based on an infinite urge. This proud structure of meat and bones has to go through a lot to be the home of the infinite. It has to go through a lot to forget itself. So the body, the self who craves survival, tries to get rid of the faith by doubt, by temptations of lust, pleasure, and logic. As Kierkegaard believes, doubt is not a sin since it’s only natural. It’s a sin to feel the infinite and still choose the finite. And Franz, through the painful doubt, decides faith and sticks by it till the end.
And Franz, through the painful doubt, chooses faith and sticks by it till the end. All these are also manifested in the form of the film and shouldn’t be reduced to a story since the story is only a part of the form. The structure is based on uncountable organic elements that make the sum that is formed, and choosing to study a chain of parts would inevitably leave out these chains’ connection to the excluded ones.
A main visual characteristic of the film is the usage of wide-angle lenses in most of the shots. These lenses accentuate physical separation between bodies and nature at typical spatial distances. But whenever characters are close together or close to the camera, a visual distortion occurs, that implies a somewhat spiritual connection between material beings. This connection refers to the oneness between people and people and nature. There is a powerful scene towards the end of the film where Franz and his wife see each other for the last time and Fanny, the lawful wife, expresses her sympathy for Franz. Guards don’t let them hug each other, but when they stand in front of each other, Malick’s blocking implies the connection between the two, which is above material or physical. Malick’s smartly and without disturbing continuity uses a telephoto lens to emphasize the relationship in a film that was used to separation caused by wide lenses.
Just like the last previous films of Malick, A Hidden Life uses minimal dialogue. This has a reason besides putting strength on visuals. If you pay attention, even in the scenes where two characters are talking, Malick breaks the dialogue by using jump cuts or cutting sentences in the middle. Conversations become internal monologues, like characters talking to their conscience or justifying their decisions and actions. In this way, Malick gets around the lying and physical nature of the language used for daily life and gets closer to the mind and inner reality of the characters. The truth that Franz doesn’t throw away for the sake of worldly life. Here you can feel the poetic enigma of life, poetry that logical life imposed by society tries to ignore. Still, like Franz, you can feel it deep inside and in your relationship with other people. Malick successfully translates this underlying poetry of everyday life into cinematic language.
The film convinces us that Franz has made the right decision, but his decision goes against common logic. So this is art at its’ best, creating new meanings or changing the ones we had. As said before, Franz isn’t immune to suffering. His suffering is in the form of doubt. So his soul wanders around, and the camera follows this motion which looks like a dance in search of eternity. This search and movement transcend time and space, and Malick’s direction moves us smoothly through them. Music and soundtrack act like a bridge between discontinued time and space, and creating a hypnotic atmosphere makes us move fluidly in jump cuts.
This hypnotic and fluid state makes us watch the three-hour movie with no traditional plot points, without feeling time. The film uses exotic and beautiful imagery in most scenes. Still, it never falls into the trap of being convinced and relying on beautiful imagery like many other movies in modern cinema. Here, beauty is a device to go beyond it and reach the meaning and feel the infinite. This does not happen by being symbolic but through de-familiarization. Malick shows us what lies in and beyond all these beautiful beings we encounter every day and pass them simply as stunning and leisurely objects. Malick’s artistic effort takes on an infinite journey, and we feel something that can’t explain, like Franz, who is incapable of explaining his decisions. You can feel it and accept it humbly.
