Life, Love, Culture & Challenges in the 1600s

Rating: 8/10 (14 December 2019)

(Flash Review)
1609 is the year and three English ships find land. An insubordinate man, John Smith, gets taken by a Native American tribe and earns their trust and is kept alive to tell his English settlers they must leave at Spring. In the meantime, he finds love with the Indian chief's daughter, Pocahontas. Turns into a Romeo and Juliet situation where both groups remain adversarial. At this point the film contrasts the Native American honest and open and trusting society to that of the combative and distrusting English. Being a Terrence Malick directed film, the visuals and atmosphere are the primary communication vehicle and it does not apologize for that. Will Pocahontas and John Smith find a way to be together peacefully? Pocahontas does spend some time living in England and the film analyzes how she adapts to a new world. The beautiful visuals are accompanied by rising and falling hopeful instrumental music. Malick uses lots of handheld shots to accentuate the wide open lands to bring the viewer further into the films atmosphere. If you like Malick's style, you'll like this and if you don't like minimal dialog and sparse storytelling, this may not be for you. Through the DVD special features, I did learn that the film tried super hard to make the sets as true to period as possible and only used natural lighting.