Richard Terrell

I tend to agree with the people here who don't like it much. The characters are, for all their virtue, uninteresting and somewhat bland. On the other hand, these people were, after all, ordinary people, and the actors are tasked with portraying ordinary (who knows, maybe actually boring) people caught up in extraordinary circumstances. But my main response is that the director, Terrance Malick, draws the viewer's attention more to himself and his stylistic elegance, than the story itself. I find this same manneristic, self-referencing approach to film in Orson Welles, which is one of the reasons I loathe "Citizen Kane," despite its justified status in film history. It's too bad, because the stories of ordinary people who resisted, in one form or another, Hitler are important and should be told with compelling attention to their character and motives, and not a director's constant appeal to "look at THIS—aren't you impressed?" I think this movie is much more likely to stimulate discussion about Terrance Malick and his brilliance than it is to elevate interest in Franz Jagestaetter. Cinematography, as noted by many, is great, and the third hour is gripping. Even here, however, Malick gives us numerous possible endings, but just keeps on going, as if trying to stretch the film out to record length.