Five Films to Watch During Holy Week
For centuries people have used art during Holy Week to meditate on the mysteries of Christ’s passion and death. Great art complements the great liturgies of Holy Week and can itself be a kind of contemplation that draws us more deeply into the liturgical reality of Christ’s passion.
Film does not have to be passive popcorn entertainment or gritty antihero relativism. At its best, it can combine visual poetry, narrative and music to lift our minds and hearts to God.
Although these suggestions are not what you would call “Jesus movies,” all confront our own worldly egoism and immerse us into the mystery of Christ’s saving passion.
A Hidden Life (2019)
In 2007 Pope Benedict XVI beatified Franz Jägerstätter, the Austrian farmer who refused to sign an oath to Hitler. His life sounds ordinary, but Terrence Malick suffuses this spellbinding biopic with such supernatural awareness that there is a sacred quality even in the smallest moments. The film is also laden with scripture, especially from Jesus’s parables and passion.
In the beginning we watch Franz and Fanni farm and raise their daughters in an Edenic mountain village. They seem blissfully happy, but the opening music, Bach’s St Matthew’s Passion, hints where their lives will go. Franz is called up to serve in the army, which he soon leaves after refusing to sign the oath to Hitler. He prayerfully discerns this weighty decision and eventually is sent to prison where he prays, writes letters to his wife, and comforts other prisoners.
Franz’s passion is also his wife’s as she bears not only the heavy burdens of farming life and mothering alone, but suffers mockery and ostracization from her neighbors. Everyone besides Fanni, even the parish priest and bishop, pressure him to sign the oath and thus end his death sentence. However, Franz’s conscience tells him that it is better to suffer persecution than acquiesce with evil.
Ultimately it is Franz and Fanni’s shared faith and marriage that allow them to bear their cross. This film is a testament to the beauty of a marriage lived in light of a great love for Christ. Malick reminds us that we are called to follow Christ, not just admire him.
