It was a movie I had on my watch list for years. Friends I highly respect had given the “A Hidden Life” rave reviews. What held me back from watching it was the long run time – 2 hours and 54 minutes, to be exact.
As a mama of littles, it took a couple years of scrolling past it on my movie list before committing to two nights in a row of watching it with my husband. So finally, we sat and watched it. More accurately, we sat and contemplated. It has given us much to ponder that relates to St. John Paul II’s theology of the body as it is a powerful story of one man’s vocation to love, in and through his body, as he cared for and served his family.
The cinematography in “A Hidden Life” is absolutely stunning, and as its title suggests, it gives a beautiful example of what it means to live a simple, ordinary life. You see real life in its rawest form, and somehow, it looks like art. The dignity of work is powerfully seen in the many facets of farming: digging in the garden with bare hands, scrubbing potatoes, cutting wheat with a machete, tilling the fields, watching babies, baking bread.
The protagonist of the film is Austrian Franz Jägerstätter, born in 1907. He lived in the small, largely Catholic village of St. Radegund with his wife, Franziska, and their three daughters. The film is based on the real events of this ordinary, humble, motorcycle-riding husband, father and farmer. Your heart will be warmed by scenes of his simple yet deeply joyful family life – but also broken by the intense suffering he so courageously submitted to.
As Austria was slowly turning towards Nazism, Franz began to grapple with the consequences of obedience to a dictator and what this would mean for him and his family both in this life and the next. He could not swear an oath that was in opposition to his faith. With his whole village against him, he voted against the unification of his home country with Germany, an act which made him enemies with his next-door neighbors.
When Franze was eventually called up to serve, his stance against Hitler’s oath and opposition against Nazism landed him in prison where he was brutally tortured, but I won’t give away the ending.
During this time, his wife and family were forced to toil in their fields alone, with no help from their old friends and neighbors. It calls to mind Genesis 3:19, which reads” “By the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread.” The verse has TOB echoes, hinting at the interconnection of body, mind and soul.
“A Hidden Life” literally depicts this and also gives an example of Pope St. John Paul’s message in Laborem Exercens (Through Work) that “in spite of all this toil” it “corresponds to man’s dignity, that expresses this dignity and increases it.” In their toil, you see their strength and endurance.
You will have to watch the film in its entirety to witness more of the virtue of the Jägerstätter family, and with its longer runtime perhaps it is good for some of the down time of the holiday break. Know that it is very slow moving, but I found that helped draw me into the beauty of the ordinary. Rated PG-13 for its mature theme and violent images, it may be suitable for older teens. Available for rent on Amazon Prime or may be available at your library.