The New World
By: Moviefaire | Category: Film Reviews | 12/30/05 | 09:54 PM
 |  |  Grade: A- | Genre: Adventure/Drama
Summary: Another artistic feast by writer/director Terrance Malick, who delivers a visually lush, hypnotic film, that opens "new worlds" to John Smith, Pocahontas, and the audience (if they let it.) Why the warning light? This flick might not suit your taste.
Writer/director Terrence Malick has only released four films of note in his career, and while taking his sweet time in making each of them, he has created his own unmistakable style in the process. His films are almost meditations with plots, and The New World is no exception. Malick uses the same techniques and modes of operation for each of these movies, and this makes him one of the few directors around anymore whom not only have cult-like devotees, but you could recognize his movies even if the director's name was never in the credits. Do not count on a hard and fast plot for The New World, or intense dialogue between the characters, and the use of CGI to bombard you, but instead open yourself up for a different kind of film. Malick uses his take on the Pocahontas myth to create a movie about innocence, love and loss, and the miracle of experiencing new places and new ways of life. |
The movie profoundly transports us to a time that we can only speculate about it - Jamestown and England in the early 1600s. Jamestown is presented so real, I might add, that you can feel the aching sorrow, hopelessness and utter despair of the colonists and their surroundings. This element alone would be enough for me to see this movie. The New World is a meditative, hypnotic, epic that shares these vastly different worlds from the perspective of the central characters, who are mystified, enthralled, and bewildered by their experiences. Through this slow-paced movie, the audience gets the sensation that the world is changing, and it will never be the same again. We experience this world through the eyes and voice-overs of the central characters. There is a surreal and distant quality in this film that kept me from becoming too involved, but I also felt that it was right that I stay an outside observer. The real relationship between John Smith and Pocahontas is speculative and this film is not about exact history, but about the two soulful and painful love stories in this film - the one between Smith and Pocahontas and another between these characters and their new worlds. Malick presents a visual feast for the audience to experience. The cinematography has a calm style, natural lighting, and an artistic flare that make this film more an art-house flick than one that belongs in a movie chain.
 | | | The New World | | Starring: Colin Farrell, Christopher Plummer, Wes Studi, August Schellenberg, Raoul Trujillo, Michael Greyeyes, Q'Orianka Kilcher & Christian Bale | | Director: Terrence Malick |
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John Smith (Colin Farrell), and Pocahontas (Q'Orianka Kilcher), immerse themselves in their new lands, and what the director manages to do is let the audiences see these experiences from their eyes and hear about it in their thoughts. Malick uses narration to establish the transitions, emotions and discoveries of these characters. The movie captures the bleakness of the time, the awkwardness of two worlds colliding, and the breathtaking new continent the English set foot on, with gorgeous cinematography, and a musical score composed by James Horner with a little Mozart and Wagner thrown in. Colin Farrell's Smith has a wildness and unpredictability about him, but is not given too much to do other than reflecting the adventurer's transitions for us. Farrell does this subtly and as well as any actor could, given the lack of real dialogue, and his Smith visibly blossoms as he is overwhelmed by the Eden that was Virginia. Smith witnesses the devastating changes that go along with this new world. His only peace resides in the loving gaze of Pocahontas, played sublimely by the young actress Q'Orianka Kilcher. In a sense, she is the nubile and innocent virgin territory that was the unspoiled continent prior to the settlers' arrival. Christian Bale, as John Rolfe, her future husband does an admirable job as the sweet-natured settler who courts Pocahantas and eventually marries her, when Pocahontas believes Smith is dead. The characters and their love triangle are just a part of the film and more like the framework for the movie than the core.
I believe viewers will either love this movie or be turned off by it. Malick directs this film as he has directed his others, with a slow-paced, languishing feel to the entire process, where a calm countenance will be needed to enjoy this movie. In other words, if you are looking for millions to die in a battle scene and worlds to explode, you will not find it here. What you could discover, however, is what America might have appeared like to those who first landed, and how these strange men were perceived by the Native Americans. Malick's ambition was to honestly portray the love of a very young woman toward a man and the European culture that invaded her world. He accomplishes this feat with natural sounds, moments where the only voices you hear are nature's, and with scenes exquisitely captured and painted with the camera lens. There is rich beauty in every frame, even in the desolation of the settler's existence, as no detail is left unattended. To me this is an extraordinary and brave film, and if you are adventurous, it might open up a "new world" to you as well.
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