A New World Meditation

Rating: 10/10 (30 January 2006)

Amazing film. In order to fully comprehend the prison we call "America" and "civilization" I suggest to you that you go see this film in this manner. When you enter the theater instead of sitting silently or chatting with your friends take a look around at your fellow movie goers, try and make eye contact, smile...if this seems strange or uncomfortable meditate on the alienation of sitting separately and uncommunicative with your fellow human in a public place. Once you have had your look about then sit silently with you eyes close and relax . When the previews start keep your eyes closed and as you listen think about how the words devoid of the associative imagery are easily identified as mental programming instructions for the maintenance of our "so-called-reality." Do not open your eyes until you hear prayer to the sun spoken by Pocahontas at the beginning of the film. I assure you that if you approach the film in this way you will never think the same about the world you find outside the multiplex and will achingly mourn the loss of the land as it was and the people who once lived upon it. Terence Malik, the director tells a story with imagery rather than narrative and there is more to it than Jamestown, John Smith or Pocahontas. At the conclusion you realize that this film is a meditation upon Love as our natural state of being and how this Love is thwarted by a person seeking ambition, by a civilization that has long ago forgotten Love and seeks material wealth as a poor substitute and by the antagonism that exists in patriarchal cultures, whether "natural" or "civilized."