A Mythic Exploration of a Clash of Civilizations

Rating: 10/10 (21 February 2006)

"The New World" is a sophisticated and breathtaking look at a pivotal moment in history -- the meeting of English colonists with the native peoples of North America.
Writer/director Terrence Malick tells a powerful story of mythic proportions through flesh-and-blood individuals. It is a doomed story of sights, sounds, contrasts, passions and miscommunication. The changes are powerfully and gradually shown, with minimal dialog, through the three-part story of the curiosity, bravery and adaptability of an extraordinary young woman.
Where "Thin Red Line" looked at the relationship between war and the environment, here is the relationship between religion and the environment. This is a clash of gods, those communing with Mother Earth vs. those proclaiming service to Jesus Christ. This is a metaphorical retelling of Adam and Eve thrown out of Eden.
In the pivotal, and primarily emotive, role of the conflicted, complicated John Smith, Colin Farrell is not just the preternatural rebel, but really uses his visceral masculinity. He scruffily comes off the water (a recurring image) in chains and is only saved from hanging for mutiny because his military skills are deemed essential by expedition leader Christopher Plummer.
Plummer orders cutting all the trees around to build fortifications, initiating their environmental desecration. He sends Farrell off into the wilderness for trade before returning to England for supplies (I've read that his voice-over Manifest Destiny pontifications were added in the revision).
What follows goes on a bit long like "Dances with Wolves" as Smith gradually finds his soul with the natives (his tattooed torso fits in with their colorful body displays) and falls in love with the chief's daughter (never called Pocahontas).
We see their peaceful domestication of the environment with crops, fishing, families, homes, governing council -- though they do have weapons so it's not a pacifist idyll (the tribal issues are hard to follow, and it's not clear that briefly seen shaman Irene Bedard is her mother). He again gets saved from execution, legendarily by her, and is in effect reborn. Their time "in the forest" seems so unreal to him that in his narration of his thoughts he repeats "I thought it was a dream."
This Edenic beauty makes his return to Jamestown that much more shocking as a gruesome "Lord of the Flies" society has erupted like an environmental original sin -- they have stripped the sea of fish and the land in a mad search for the gold of the Indies instead of tending crops. They are insane with religious fanaticism and internecine, murderous arguments with cruel neglect of even children. We see glimpses of character actors scarily effective in showing a miniature society gone to hell.
Smith makes the fateful decision to side with his white brethren who are in such desperate, foolish need, even when they viciously reject his help and advice. Cassandra-like, he urges his native love "don't trust me," seeing the future ruin of the natives though incapable of preventing it, letting the Chief think the colonists will leave.
She remains tragically idealistic and hopeful, rejected by her father for helping the colonists. There is a confusing part two of their love story that duplicates the images of being free to be together in the wilderness, but not in either of their's civilization. He protests: "Where would we live? In a tree top? In a hole in the ground?" He rejects her, as well as the moral compromise of using her as a hostage when relations between the natives and settlers deteriorate from first random then wholesale violence.
Her character matures; Farrell's does not, preferring her innocent and untouched by progress. He uses personal ambition, and even the religious strictures of Leviticus, as an excuse, leading to one of their few exchanges: "Did you find your Indies, John?" "I think I went past it."
Q'Orianka Kilcher makes this work, miraculously for someone so young. She is not only emotionally expressive, has magical physical chemistry with Farrell and is explosive in grief and longing, but is also incredibly physically active as she changes from boundless barefoot freedom to the cautious confinement of corset and boots, and eventually conversion through baptism under a stream of water to emerge as "Rebecca". And she's beautiful.
I saw the film twice to take in the characters' confusing trajectories, but both were Malick's revised version, which I've read cut the development of John Rolfe's (Christian Bale) patronizing, but loving, relationship in civilization with her ("You don't really know the meaning of the word marriage, do you?" All she asks is "Are you kind?"). I wanted to see more of their courtship within the manipulated agricultural environment instead of the repeat of her and Smith's sensual forest frolics. Where Smith guiltily thinks "I am not the man you think I am," she moves on to Rolfe: "You are the man I think you are." Ironically, the cash crop the natives teach the colonists is killer tobacco.
The closing visit to London is a striking contrast. The marvels of a busy city and the pomp of the Royal Court are not overwhelming but vignettes, like her sympathizing with a caged animal. What is creatively striking and deserving of the extended screen time is "Rebecca", and another native Wes Studi, strolling in formal and topiary gardens. This civilization's controlling mastery over nature is stultifyingly complete. Yet the resourceful young woman adapts, cartwheeling through the mowed grass, climbing a tree and playing with a child, briefly finding happiness.
While Emmanuel Lubezki's cinematography is gorgeous, the sound design and editing are magnificent, as the silences, natural sounds and man-made interruptions are used in tandem. James Horner's swelling score is his best ever, including bits from Wagner to native instrumentation and vocalization. But the music is carefully used for cultural emphasis around the ambient sounds, from the opening to the end of the closing credits. Stay through to hear the full effect.