Franz is sent to the military camp to prepare for battle but doesn’t believe in the Nazi cause. Watch the trailer for A Hidden Life below:īut the storm clouds – both literal and metaphorical – are approaching, and when WWII arrives, their peaceful existence is shattered.

But unlike some of his more recent films – namely To the Wonder, Knight of Cups, and Song to Song – the naturalism never slips into cliché or self-parody, with stunning tracking shots presenting the Jägerstätters as a family at one with nature, finding joy in the tranquility that surrounds them. Such shots are his trademark, and at times reminiscent of the director’s 1978 sophomore effort Days of Heaven. It’s 1939 and Franz lives with his wife Fani and their daughters, working and living off the luscious Alpine land, which allows Malick to fill the film with elegiac imagery of rolling hills, babbling brooks and seemingly endless fields of wheat. Aside from newsreel footage of the Fuhrer overseeing Nazi rallies, parades and processions, the film’s early scenes concern an idyllic life in the quaint Austrian village of St. But where that film placed the audience slap-bang in the middle of the action by depicting the Battle of Guadalcanal, this is a very different kind of war movie, with A Hidden Life playing out a world away from the front line. Malick has already crafted a WWII feature, with 1998’s The Thin Red Line his return to moviemaking following a 20-year hiatus.

A hidden life netflix