This week, Katie and I watched the film ‘A Hidden Life.’ We’re both fans of Terrence Malick. Particularly, Tree of Life. The music and cinematography in that film are sort of mind-blowing.
A light-hearted romp, however, A Hidden Life is not. Sadly, it’s not even inspiring in the way, say, Schindler’s List is inspiring. What makes it such a powerful film, maybe frustratingly so, is in the questions it poses rather than the answers it provides. Perhaps they all boil down to one: What is enough?
At the end of the film, a quote from George Eliot’s novel Middlemarch appears before it fades away, leaving K and I with way more to think about than we did three hours earlier.
The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half-owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
George Eliot
