A sorrowful elegy that illustrates with emotional participation the granite struggle of a meek man to preserve his beliefs and his autonomy as a Man. In a world dominated by a pervasive Evil that that has almost defeated God, in a beautiful world made of bright green and mountains shrouded in clouds, but whose sky is almost always full of black, threatening clouds, Franz and Fani are a Edenic couple who live a life of joy and hard work on the land. Hard work, but still a paradise, a place filled with love and brotherhood. Until the arrival of war, which destroys the Eden and introduces Evil and Hatred. How can one defend oneself? With the stupid, tenacious strength typical of mild-mannered, pure-hearted people: by going to die for an ideal, so as not to lose that humanity in which one continues to believe, despite the realisation that man is a ruthless animal who enjoys making people suffer, who enjoys killing.
With his now typical lyrical style, the voice-over, the extensive use of wide-angle lenses, the splendid photography, Malick constructs a theodicy that recounts in verse the life of a man persecuted because of justice (in this sense, therefore, a blessed man, according to the Christological dictate of the Sermon on the Mount), a film that is far removed from the biographical or hagiographical genre, a film that is instead a very sad poem on the Evil that crushes Man and on Man who defends himself from Evil with the only weapon he has left: Sacrifice.
With his now typical lyrical style, the voice-over, the extensive use of wide-angle lenses, the splendid photography, Malick constructs a theodicy that recounts in verse the life of a man persecuted because of justice (in this sense, therefore, a blessed man, according to the Christological dictate of the Sermon on the Mount), a film that is far removed from the biographical or hagiographical genre, a film that is instead a very sad poem on the Evil that crushes Man and on Man who defends himself from Evil with the only weapon he has left: Sacrifice.