A Hidden Life, by Terrance Malik, is like watching a Russian novel. There are numerous shots in the film that seem to have little to no purpose. Half of those shots are gorgeous views of the mountains in Germany, which I’m not complaining about, but don’t at first seem to add to the story in any substantial way. But also, as a Russian novel reads, in my experience, at the very end you realize there wasn’t anything extra, and all of the pages with no paragraph breaks that describe how hot St. Petersburg is in the summer prove necessary in the building of the story. Those beautiful shots of Malik’s added to the story concerning a farmer who was a conscientious objector to the Nazi regime and his wife, both of whom led a hidden life that didn’t seem to hinder the Axis in any regard.
The movie is the telling of a true story, and much of the dialogue (which is, of course, minimal) is provided by the letters that the two exchanged with each other while he was in prison, refusing to sign a document that would give his allegiance to Hitler. There is so much in this film, and the only appropriate way to digest it is in the silence that immediately follows watching it, but I think something that is on the more manageable end of writing about is the value of leading a “hidden life.”
Ironically, their life is no longer hidden as much as they thought it would be, but it was hidden when it was happening, when it actually mattered. I’m trying not to write, “We live in a society today where” because that’s such a tired phrase, and I think filled with this self-important air as if it’s impressive that one noticed a trend in a society of 350 million people basically all doing the same thing. But, we do definitely enjoy living life on display, in this society of ours. And by “we”, I mean a lot of younger folk, perhaps spurred on by the fact that we have access to the same platform that famous people become famous on, and we only need to make ourselves available for fortune to eventually tap us to become the next admired individual. Additionally, the life on display makes it easier to be admired for not actually doing anything. Saying the right words will garner respect from people you’ve never met, even if you don’t do anything about those words.
The juxtaposition between life now and the life of Franz Jagerstatter (the aforementioned objector) is stark. Words (twitter statements) are what we look to for what is real, what makes up a person, and in “A Hidden Life,” Franz says nearly nothing, but his actions show more passion and hatred of Hitler’s ideology than could possibly be expressed otherwise, even though he doesn’t look angry, or scream or yell in the process. Typing with the caps lock on doesn’t quite carry the same energy as quietly going to the guillotine.
All of that as an aside, there is power in leading a life hidden, or sincerely, or actually. I thought of how in the Gospel of John he says that all of the books in the world could be filled with the actions that Jesus did. Acting on the assumption that you only write about what is amazing or note-worthy, Jesus must have done an incredible number of those sorts of things for John to have asserted that. It made me think that a very small portion of his life is actually recorded, that maybe some of his most amazing acts are hidden. To me, that almost validates something. What sort of Lord, after every miracle, turns to one of his disciples and says “okay write that down” as if he was shocked that it worked? There’s a duality in recording what he knew we needed 2000 years later to have faith in him, while also omitting what wasn’t needed and living life with those around him. His actions I’d assume were the same off book. He wasn’t putting on a show when he saw folks ready to record what he was doing. He wasn’t performing, he was living out who he was.
Who knows what miracles the disciples saw hundreds of times? What if they stood looking into the clouds after he ascended because he had done that sort of thing 1000 times and had always come back down, only that time was different?
Hiding life seems to have some value, as Jesus “hid” almost all of his, and not because it was unremarkable. Today, the trend is to pump up things that are actually unremarkable in order to make them feel remarkable to other people in order to justify sharing them. What is it like to do something actually remarkable and say nothing? To say nothing proves sincerity, authenticity. A focus on the action, on helping, serving, whatever it may be, and not on making sure others see it so that the actor feels validated. To say nothing is truly selfless, truly loving. If all of the books of the world were filled up with all of Jesus’ miracles, by his mandate, I don’t know if I’d like that. It would seem as if he wasn’t truly focused on loving those around him, but proving who he was. By loving, he proved, as love to deny oneself can only come from the Lord.
Franz Jagerstatter wasn’t performing when he went to jail. He wasn’t loud, yelling to anyone who would listen about how he was being persecuted. He wrote to his wife about his love for her, about how he didn’t want to be going through this, but how he had to. There was nothing to be proud of, only death to fear. Malik is very effective in showing this. He wasn’t lauded for dying. His wife wasn’t lauded for saying he was doing the right thing, for giving up her husband and her children’s father for the sake of what they believed. They lived a quiet life, but there is nothing more concentrated than what no one knows about. Nothing more pure than love secretly lived. Nothing more bare-bones honest than dying silently, almost inconsequentially, amidst millions of others. Nothing more loving than raising the dead for only those around Him to know. Nothing more loving than not writing down beautiful moments to prove Lordship.
It would be an unoriginal thing to say “actions speak louder than words”, but actions recorded can lose their volume when it comes to truth. Maybe instead, it should be “quiet actions speak truer than words.” That really takes the air out of all of this writing I just did. But hopefully, time of reflection leads to silent doing in the future, and maybe less recording of things that were meant for other people at other times, and the desire to prove anything will float away like the unremembered miracles of Jesus.
Look Down, Be Here 