Or is it a monument erected to the church itself, the church whose silence was in those days deafening?
When I was leaving the theater with the seven other attendees, a man engaged me in conversation. I asked him what he thought of the movie. He said only that "it was beautiful." I was startled and had no response, but I thought of Rilke's words about beauty from the Duino Elegies:
"For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we still are just able to endure, and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us."
"A Hidden Life" is like that.
Near the end we see Franz and a group of prisoners sitting on a bench awaiting their turns to be beheaded by the executioner in a black coat and bowler hat. A man just doing his job, a bored look on his face, loping off heads one by one, anxious to get the mornings work done and get to lunch. The terror on the victims' faces is palpable. I felt sick. While some prisoners struggled as they were led into the shed that housed the guillotine, Franz walked calmly in. Malick spares the viewer the details. All we are shown is the aftermath - a floor awash in blood. And as I recall, the light streaming in a high-up window.
Always the light to show us the way.
.youtube.com/watch?v=qJXmdY4lVR0
(Article changed on February 18, 2020 at 21:08)
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