Princesita Lawrence

Terrence Malick creates and makes statements in his films. Often, the films are long, always beautifully shot, and require the audience to think about the point he's making. In this movie, the focus is on living and acting on your beliefs. Franz Jagerstatter (August Diehl) was profoundly religious and had a personal relationship with his idea of God, Christ, and what was right and wrong. He was faithful to the Catholic church in his tiny Austrian hillside village, called St. Radegund. As part of his commitment to the church performed duties at the church almost every day. Married to Franziska, Fani (Valerie Pachner) they began their life together, farming and then having two children. They farmed their land by hand and were an integral part of their small community. During harvest season, the community worked together to bring in and store the harvested crops. The town felt like it was a long way from the war that Hitler was bringing to the world. However, when the war started turning against Hitler, the army drafted all eligible men to serve the Third Reich. This included Franz. A requirement for serving the German Army was to sign a pledge of allegiance to Hitler and the German government. Franz couldn't do this. He could not live with himself if he signed something that was against what he believed, and after the army attempted to persuade him with physical and verbal abuse, they threw him in jail. The German officers even solicited the assistance of his local priest to convince him to sign the oath of loyalty. In essence, the priest was saying that God would overlook his signing the document to save his own life and the life of his family. He couldn't and wouldn't sign the oath and therefore spent years in jail. But Franz wasn't the only one who paid the price, so did Fani. In scenes back in the village, Fani and the girls are depicted being shunned by almost everyone in the village because her husband Franz was giving their town a bad name in the eyes of ruling Germany. The film spends time going back and forth between Franz in prison being harassed and beaten into signing a loyalty oath and the village where Fani and the girls were continuing to be harassed by the people in her town. The immense pressure building up in Franz didn't break him down and his wife, despite the immense movement to ostracize her and the girls, continued to support him and his decision despite what she was going through. This film shows the cruelty of people when someone stands up for their beliefs. Because the people, including the priest, are unwilling to stand for their true feelings, they make Franz and Fani the enemy. The physical beauty of the area of the village was well captured by the cinematographer. The integration of archival footage of Adolf Hitler and the huge parades he commanded was well done. Diehl was terrific as Franz. His ability to show his internal struggle in a contained, in prison, way was perfect. Pacher was sublime. Her looks of intensity and passion towards other characters, amazing. Michael Nyqvist's performance as the local Bishop that tried to persuade Franz to sign the document was excellent. Alexander Radszun's performance as the judge that sentenced Franz to death was very good. You could see that he understood and struggled but had to follow his own loyalty oath. Malick wrote a script that was too long. I think the film could have had a stronger impact if it was more crisp in its presentation. Overall: Long and pretty, it needed to be tightened up to make its point even stronger.