A Hidden Life (2019)

Score: 5 / 5

Terrence Malick's latest film -- he has certainly become prolific in the last decade -- might be my favorite yet. While it is uncompromisingly true to his unique aesthetic, for better or worse, it is one of his few pictures to adhere tightly to a script. Some may prefer that to his usual free-associating meditations on love, life, beauty, pain, and transcendence; I personally find Malick far more accessible and enjoyable when he has a more linear story to tell. This is because I won't get lost in his bizarre leaps of vision or ambiguous attention to sensory detail over character or story; rather, because he gives us a plot, we can then much more easily understand the weighty, heady themes he nevertheless launches at us with breathtaking focus.

A Hidden Life tells the story of, indeed, a life largely obscured from history. Franz Jagerstatter was an Austrian peasant farmer who was called up for military training when World War II erupts in Europe. When he is eventually summoned to fight, he refuses, citing his pacifist and religious beliefs. This is most pointed (and most criminal) when he is made to enact his first duty: swearing an oath of allegiance to Hitler. In 1943, Franz is eventually arrested, imprisoned, and sentenced to death for his conscientious objection. Because of his apparently dishonorable beliefs and actions, Franz was almost wiped from history by his own people until 120 years later, when a U.S. sociologist published his biography; in 2007 the Pope declared Franz a martyr.

The story is, of course, exactly the sort of life-affirming work that can and will affect everyone, and naturally attracts artists like Malick. His focus on the profoundly human perspective, though, keeps this film more grounded, intimate, and immediate than anything I've seen from him since The New World. Unlike The Tree of Life, which attempts to encompass all of existence, his Hidden Life attempts to encompass the purity and beauty of the human soul. I'd argue it succeeds magnificently. Malick's focus on Franz's country life may be culturally and geographically specific, but in the moments of joy and love between Franz and his wife and three daughters, of farming in the Edenic Austrian countryside, of praying and eating and soaking in the sunshine, we see traces of Malick's usual themes. Along with Franz, we thrive in the beauty and grandeur of nature and the sweat of his brow, we see with him why social institutions (his church, his government) put his spirit and life in danger, and the indomitable human soul in pursuit of transcendence.

Malick, ever the poet and philosopher and theologian and artist, nevertheless allows us to taste the torments Franz endures during a challenging three-hour runtime. Even before he is arrested, Franz and his family endure increasingly intense ostracism from his small rural town, including his mayor, priest, and bishop. After he is arrested, he is treated brutally by guards while psychologically tested by lawyers all in an effort to break his resolve. His wife and daughters are victimized by the hostile townspeople. And all the while, other people quietly say they support him, even as they do nothing to stand in solidarity. Most fascinating to me is that even some Nazis (or, at least, some Nazi supporters) are given a chance, in the film, to question, consider, and doubt Franz's ideas. One of my favorite scenes includes the late Bruno Ganz as a judge who questions Franz and, after he leaves, appears to attempt empathy with the man who is certain to die.

And though I'm not entirely sure Malick could ever be said to be a particularly timely filmmaker, nor even a remotely angry one, A Hidden Life comes fabulously close to being both. It wouldn't be a stretch to declare this movie a sharply pointed assault on U.S. culture at the end of the 2010s. The movie begins with stock images of Nazis marching in the streets with torches, and if you don't immediately recall Charlottesville in 2017, you're doing it wrong. When you hear the priests and lawyers equivocating, submitting to the fascist dictator and war machine, it's impossible not to think of the way the Trump administration has catered to the religious right and the way outspoken "Christian" leaders have bowed before him as if he were their Messiah. Malick, in telling this story at this time is unveiling a defiant and damning mirror upon us, revealing that our faith is in crisis. Not beyond our help -- and indeed, he is calling us all to action -- but at the threshold of doom.

The Lodge (2020)

Score: 4 / 5

This post is late in coming, but I watched this movie in mid-April, the height of our stay-at-home social order. It was still cold that weekend, and the garden was in danger of frost. As an introvert, I never got particularly depressed during this time, but this was about six or seven weeks in, and the cabin fever was beginning to addle my brain. We all started to lose track of time, health, priorities. And The Lodge was a particularly nasty way to spend a Friday evening after a trying day of working remotely. It may not have the same emotional effect on me now, but I'd guess it's still a harrowing experience. From the writing/directing team of Goodnight Mommy, I'd have expected no less. It takes ample ideas from other films and fashions something absorbing and indeed horrific if never quite original, but its cinematography and editing make the film, for me, endlessly fascinating.

The latest Hammer horror flick begins with a stylish, cerebral series of twists that some may find hard to grasp. I certainly did, upon the first viewing. We meet Laura, calling for her children and clearly distressed despite her immaculate, comfortable house that feels like something from a historic district in a middle-class New England suburb. She takes them to their father, Richard, whose modern house indicates he has moved on from Laura; indeed, its warm wooden exterior belies a cold interior with lots of open spaces, through which Laura sees a shadowy woman sneaking away. "Don't worry, she's not here," Richard tells his soon-to-be-ex-wife. But after he pushes for a divorce, Laura goes home and straightaway kills herself.

There's a chilling efficiency at work in these first twenty minutes, not because the plot or characters are particularly complex but because the aesthetic is. In only three separate locations, the architecture changes dramatically, as do the props and lighting. The opening shot, initially thought to be the titular lodge, is a warm wooden interior but the shot's focus is of a lone window through which icy white light streams. This sharp contrast is revealed as irony by the fourth shot, when this interior is populated by dolls; it's a dollhouse -- a la Hereditary -- that foreshadows more than anything. But its use in the first twenty minutes suggests something about the children who play with it, as we shall soon see.

The "other woman" is Grace, a mysterious figure who doesn't physically appear in any early scene. Richard (played by a brusque Richard Armitage) declares his love for her and hopes his grieving children will embrace her as he has when he declares his intention to marry her during their Thanksgiving preparations. But they have no intention of doing so: young Mia (Lia McHugh) clings to the doll of her mother while Aidan (Jaeden Martell) accuses her of being a psychopath and looks up her history. We learn along with the children that Grace is the daughter of an insane cult leader and the sole survivor of a mass murder-suicide. Richard met her while researching the cult and while his character remains rather opaque, we know he continues to push the children toward Grace, ultimately deciding that the three of them will spend time in the family's remote lodge in the mountains for Christmas.

It's obviously a terrible idea, and the children's cold welcome of Grace (Riley Keough) at the twenty-minute mark launches the film into its main plot. They drive up through the snow to the cabin in the woods, where Grace's trial by fire (or, rather, ice) is to commence, when Richard has to leave for his pre-Christmas work duties. We know immediately that Grace knows she doesn't belong and isn't welcome, not only due to the children avoiding her but due to the strong religious iconography in the lodge. At their first meal, an imposing Mother Mary looks down at Grace, clouding her visage and starting to remind her of her past, to the point that her nose starts bleeding. At this point, we are less than a third of the way through the movie, and at least three distinct genres have been firmly established: psychological thriller (children/outsider), tragedy (family), and horror (cult). This movie could go anywhere. And then they get snowed in.

And that's where I'll leave you. Creepy things start to happen, and we're constantly wondering if the lodge is haunted, if Grace is possessed, if the kids are out to get her, if she's just crazy. A notable screening of The Thing suggests there may be more horrors at stake for Grace and the kids than each other. The many twists and turns are less shocking and terrifying than deeply disturbing, and by the climax -- yes, there's a "reveal" but by that point the movie is more about what will happen as a result of the revelation -- I found myself eager for the film to be over. Not because I didn't like it, quite the contrary, but because its oppressively claustrophobic aesthetic, heady symbolism, and densely cerebral psychological horror was tough to endure. And, by the reveal, the film will continue on its (at this point) inevitable course to a grisly conclusion.

Self Made (2020)

Score: 3.5 / 5

Okay, it's not a film, but this is my blog and I can review whatever I want.

Self Made is the fascinating story of Madam C.J. Walker. I didn't know it was fascinating because I didn't know who she was, and so this miniseries works best by opening the door to historical knowledge. Madam was the first woman who became a self-made millionaire in America. She was also Black. And this series relies on her vision, resourcefulness, determination, hard work, and gumption to inspire and educate. It's also eminently approachable by someone, like me, who admittedly doesn't know who Walker was, doesn't really understand business, and doesn't know much about hair care (especially for black people). That's what got Madam Walker to the top.

Played by the inimitable Octavia Spencer, Madam C.J. Walker becomes iconic, the sort of larger-than-life historical figure you might see featured in an Oliver Stone movie. She begins in squalor as Sarah Breedlove, working hard as a washerwoman and having nothing to show for it, looking a bit of a mess as a way of life. Then she begins to lose her hair. After getting treatment -- in what feels a bit like a con but proves to be legit -- from a "magical" hair tonic, Sarah's life changes. The hope and joy in her wide eyes when she recognizes the opportunity to help other women in her shoes is infectious; Spencer's gifts as an actress stem from an uncanny ability to dominate the scene and reach out through the screen into your heart. Sarah determines to change her world, and starts by seeking a partnership with the only woman she knows who works with black women's hair: Addie Malone, played by Carmen Ejogo.

This is where things get a bit tricky, both in terms of the protagonist's life and in terms of the story being told in Self Made. The episodes touch on issues of black people's hair without really meditating on the powerful symbolism and culture of it. Addie is notably light-skinned and could be described as a "tragic mulatto" in the story; she wants to defend the ground she has earned but is unwilling to share her efforts or wealth with the shorter, darker, older Sarah. A few snide jabs about selling to people who want to look like Addie and not Sarah is all it takes for the latter to take things into her own hands. She steals Addie's formula and improves it, expands it, and develops the start of an empire with her husband and daughter in tow. She changes her name and slowly transforms into the Madam of history.

Because it is a four-part miniseries, we can safely assume the producers and writers wanted some drama, and so the two middle episodes creak a bit under the weight of interpersonal drama. Walker's husband (Blair Underwood), feeling emasculated and forgotten by his entrepreneur wife, embarks on an affair. Her daughter, Lelia (a wonderful Tiffany Haddish), is quietly revealed to us (not to many others) to have a lesbian lover. These inclusions are mostly predictable and feel too melodramatic; even though I know precious little about business, I found myself increasingly curious about how, practically, Walker was building her empire. I wanted to learn more about her actual work and the real issues she faced as a black businesswoman.

And then there are the frequent run-ins with Addie that turn bitchy one-liners into emotionally brutal, if repetitive, suggestions of superiority based on their relationships to men (including a disturbing few scenes with Booker T. Washington), money, hair, and of course skin color. And while some may criticize this dramatization of colorism as central to this story, I can't help but think it's an important discussion to continue having, especially in the historical context of the early 1900s. As a result of these scenes, though, Addie comes across almost as a cartoon villain, following Walker around the country and waiting for her next opportunity to pounce; Ejogo is brilliant, though, and plays the role with electric energy.

And while it may not be the most historically accurate series, there is something powerful to be said about dramatizing important figures in history that many of us may not know about. After all, last year's Harriet was the first major movie about Harriet Tubman, a hero every single U.S. kid learns about in elementary or middle school. Kasi Lemmons, who directed that picture, directs the first two episodes of Self Made, and uses her wonderful flair for fantasy to let us inside the mind of Madam Walker. With an eccentric soundtrack of modern R&B, hop-hop, and also some oldies and even spirituals, Lemmons makes sure we know this is all meant to be accessible and fun. Some of my favorite scenes depicted showgirls dancing and displaying her products, a boxing match with bright lights, and similar daydreams that bring to vivid life the fantasy life of someone so driven to success that they occasionally lose touch with reality.

The series spends all its time focusing on Walker's rise -- appropriate for a story with a title that implies its focus -- and so could be said to perform a disservice to Walker's legacy. Why aren't her incredible social contributions, political messages, and extensive philanthropy mentioned until some text and photos at the end of the series? But this isn't a historical treatise, nor is it meant to be the be-all and end-all statement of a full life lived. This is perhaps best shown in the series finale, as fireworks launch overhead and the black women in the crowd look into the camera to describe their own amazing accomplishments. And I, for one, am really happy to see a damn good story about Black empowerment utterly absent of the influence of white helpers, authority, or intervention. This series is meant to be as inspiring as it is entertaining, and the little bit of education it provides is certainly not a bad thing.