Film Festivals

2019 Cannes Critics’ Panel: Day 7 – Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life

Published on May 20, 2019

After spending a whole bunch of time in post (sadly actors Michael Nyqvist and Bruno Ganz will have never had the chance to see their performances), Terrence Malick makes his third trip to Cannes after Days of Heaven and the Palme d’Or winning The Tree of Life. His tenth feature film, A Hidden Life (featuring August Diehl and Valerie Pachner) is a German-U.S. co-production that explores the true story of one Franz Jägerstätter, who refused to fight for the Nazis in World War II and paid dearly for his convictions. Perhaps a confrere to The Thin Red Line for an anti-war stance but this one comes with no war sequences (save some stock footage) and visually expresses the anguish of making moral choices when it affects more than one.

Achtung! A lukewarm response from more than half of our jury folks means an average score of 3 on 5 for the master filmmaker.

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Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).

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Film Festivals

2019 Cannes Critics’ Panel: Day 7 – Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life