Speculation has abounded about Terrence Malick's latest, that it might be something "more conventional". It is, and it isn't. Here's how it is: it has its clearest dramatic structure since BADLANDS, possibly even more clear. An Austrian couple during the outbreak of WWII gradually discover that the man will be required to make an oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler. He believes, because of his Christian morality, he cannot do so. This dilemma drives the entire film, and the relationship of the couple throughout this test is its backbone.

Here's how it isn't: Malick has deeply internalised all the techniques he has used in his previous films to make an incredibly assured yet highly idiosyncratic film. It's "Malickian", and yes, that means lots of voiceover, scenes with jumpcuts, montages over classical music, and so on. There is pondering of God, what we are expected to do, kids playing in grass, and so on. You get the idea.

Now, that aside. I think this works far better than anything he's done in drama in ages because of that clear dramatic backbone. It's a sister film to Scorsese's SILENCE, an American auteur taking seriously questions of faith in a scenario that puts those questions to the ultimate test. Your personal response may vary depending on how you felt about SILENCE (I loved it), but this film is arguably even more deeply considered and nuanced in its moral thinking. Two key scenes center around our protagonist being asked, in so many words, what is the point of your protest? No one will see it anyway. It will change nothing.

This drama takes quite a while to emerge, and there will be some who have no patience for this film. I was moved from tears almost from the start. Working with German DP Jorg Widmer and some ludicrously kick-ass camera gear, Malick has shot in all-natural light and brings a bevy of astonishing images that overwhelmed me with beauty. One might say, when shooting a village like Radegund (where our heroes live; you may know that it was the initial name of the film, to be replaced by the current one, whose full import becomes clear in a closing epigram I shan't spoil), it's hard to NOT find beauty, but apart from the fact that one gets the impression he made the village from scratch, later scenes show that Malick's ability evinced in eg TO THE WONDER to make Sonic restaurants beautiful or in VOYAGE OF TIME to make parking lots beautiful has only grown, finding divine light in improbable circumstances. (This is a bizarre partner film to LUX AETERNA, which also finds its own veneration of light, but probably no one who hasn't seen those two films back to back will ever compare them again.) His editing, meanwhile, has reached a pinnacle (with three editors, two "additional editors", and several other editorial assists working seamlessly), and the moment to moment sense of emotional progression of each cut fired on all cylinders 98% of the time in a way none of his other drama films ever have for me. (I'm a weirdo who loves VOYAGE OF TIME: LIFE'S JOURNEY, but that's a very different beast to this, so don't hold that against me.)

Fundamentally, this is a serious-minded film about free will and moral responsibility. Some will find this boring. I shed every different type of tear one can shed during this film. From beauty, from sadness, from horror, from hope. Whether Terry intended this to project into our current time, I can't know. But I know that I am surrounded by people that are full of despair as to what they can do about the state of the world. What happens when horrible people do things and you feel like you can do nothing?

I shan't spoil Malick's answer, other than to say, I have not been moved by a film like this in years. And if there are small faults (a few bits of overly indicative acting, some bits of hard-to-hear dialogue, the inevitable argument that you could tighten things up a bit), they pale in significance to the utter monumental power of this film, which ranks for me with the greatest explorations of spiritual questions in cinema. The question isn't if this film deserves the Palme D'Or; the question is, does the Palme D'Or deserve this film? I thought of the closing line of INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS more than once, another absurd comparison, except that Tarantino's here, and I don't know what it is about WWII - the clarity of the moral conflict - but this may just be, in a career with no shortage of contenders, Malick's masterpiece.