Imagine you live in a picturesque village in northern Austria, a destination that even Pope Benedict XVI made a point to visit on Sunday walks with his mother when he was a boy. The meadows are green and mountains can be seen in the distance. You have a young, beautiful family and your neighbors are good friends who invite you to join them for a drink when they see you walking through the village. The work needed to sustain the family is simple, but laborious, yet eased by sharing the load among your fellow farmers.
That is, until the onset of World War II.
This is the setting for a film I had on my movies list for years. Friends had given The Hidden Life rave reviews. What held me back from starting it earlier was the long run time—a total of two hours and fifty-three minutes.
When my husband and I are searching for a movie, we usually look for something under two hours, and even then it can take us two nights to complete. As a mama of littles, a movie takes commitment! Yet finally, my husband and I watched it. To be more precise, we sat, we absorbed, and we contemplated. Thanks to its long runtime, it offers time for the viewer to reflect thoughtfully on their own life.
A Film That Honors Simplicity of Life
The cinematography in The Hidden Life is captivating, 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 seen in the many facets of farming: cultivating the soil with bare hands, scrubbing potatoes, harvesting grains with a scythe, tilling the fields, caring for babies, and baking bread.
The protagonist of the film is an Austrian, Franz Jägerstätter, born in 1907. He lived in the small, largely Catholic village of St. Radegund with his wife, Franziska (who lived to be one hundred), 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 with scenes of his simple, yet deeply joyful family life, but also broken at the intense suffering he so courageously submitted to.
Upholding the Dignity of the Human Person
As Austria was slowly turning towards Nazism, Franz began to grapple with the consequences of obedience to a dictator, who had no respect for the dignity of the human person, and what this would mean for him and his family both in this life and the next. On one hand, obedience to Hitler provided a sense of security for his family and inclusion in the life of their community, but on the other, he knew his conscience would nag at him until he made the decision that would secure his soul. His once closely knit village had turned against him when he voted against the unification of Austria and Germany under Adolf Hitler. Then, when Franz was called up to serve in the military, his stance against Hitler’s oath and opposition to Nazism landed him in prison where he endured torture and humiliation.
During this time, his wife and family were forced to toil in their fields alone, with no help from their neighbors who they once had considered good friends. It really calls to mind Genesis 3:19 which reads, “By the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread.” The Hidden Life literally depicts this and gives an example of Pope Saint John Paul II’s words in Laborem Exercens that “in spite of all this toil” it “corresponds to man’s dignity, that expresses this dignity and increases it.” In the toil of Franz and Franziska you see their strength and endurance. Their dignity.
While being imprisoned, Franz wrote,
If I must write [. . .] with my hands in chains, I find that much better than if my will were in chains. Neither prison nor chains nor sentence of death can rob a man of the Faith and his free will. God gives so much strength that it is possible to bear any suffering [. . .] People worry about the obligations of my conscience as they concern my wife and children. But I cannot believe that, just because one has a wife and children, a man is free to offend God.
Heroic Virtue Leads to Holiness
Through the heroic virtue of Franz’s hidden life and his suffering, he became a Blessed and was beatified in 2007. He was executed on August 9, 1943, the same calendar day as Saint Edith Stein, who was killed by the Nazis just one year before. Blessed Franz’s feast day is the anniversary of his Baptism, May 21.
Witnessing the virtue of the Jägerstätter family in The Hidden Life evokes in me a deeper desire to pause, notice, and pray. I’d say to sacrifice too, but if I’m being honest, I don’t actually want to sacrifice. But I hope that when I’m asked to, I can do it with the same peace and surrender that the Jägerstätters showed. I hope the simple beauty of this film can stir up something in your soul too!
Blessed Franz Jägerstätter, pray for us!
Susanna Parent is a regular contributor to the BIS blog, speaker and a freelance writer. While a Wisconsin native, she now begins her mornings brewing French press coffee in the home she shares with her husband and children in the Twin Cities. When the sun sets, you’ll find her with friends enjoying a glass of red wine, preferably outside underneath twinkly lights. When not exploring all that the Twin Cities has to offer, she is indulging her wanderlust spirit by brainstorming their family's next new adventure. You can find out more about her here. Read all of Susanna's posts here.
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