A step up from those history videos they used to make us watch in junior high

Rating: 3/10 (1 February 2007)

"The New World" is the story of John Smith and Pocahontas, and the events surrounding their courtship when Smith was helping to set up the first permanent English settlement in North America. The story spans the time between Smith and Pocahontas' initial meeting while he is being held captive in her father's village, through her eventual marriage to John Rolfe.
I admit that I have not seen many of Terrence Malick's (Director) movies, but I did see The Thin Red Line, so was not completely baffled by his slow-moving, music-driven, dialogue-void imagery to tell stories through impressionism instead of words. This style in such a personal, love-driven story as The New World didn't work for me, because of the feeling of disconnect between the audience and the characters. It was as if they were moving along in their world and I was watching from afar, with no idea what was going on sometimes, and often not caring enough about the characters or their actions. Movies are much more enjoyable for me when I feel like I am a player, right there within the action.
My final impression of the film, and what I came away with, is a lesson in history. Granted, a very beautiful lesson in history, but one that was told almost entirely through the thoughts in the main character's heads, instead of traditional dialogue. And, like the history movies that I watched in grade school, I was put to sleep just as easily. This film reminded me a lot of Sophia Coppola's "Marie Antoinette" which showed a series of lengthy and beautiful images of the young queen doing various things and going on about her life, but never really reached a point. Was it supposed to be like a reality show, where we step into her life for a few years? Was Sophia trying to absolve her of some kind of blame by showing another side of the historically stereotyped Queen? Call me barbaric and uncivilized, but I like to come away from a two-hour film experience understanding the Director's vision, not wondering if they even had one going into the project.
I have to admit, I went in to this film with very low expectations. From the previews alone, I fully expected this film to be nothing but scenes of the vicious white man coming in and gleefully hacking helpless Native American women and children to pieces as he drove them from their lands, which is something that I am very tired of hearing about from folks with political agendas parading as the new historians (especially in Hollywood). But, my soapbox aside, the fact that James Horner had written the music score gave me hope, since he is my favorite composer. The reasons that I plucked this movie from the shelves of Blockbuster were the breathtaking scenery and beautiful love story that the promotional previews promised.
I was not wrong about the scenery. Emmanuel Lubezki did an amazing job as Cinematographer. There is one scene early in the film where he makes a stalk of corn look like a priceless piece of fine art. Corn never looked so good. And, Q'Orianka Kilcher was absolutely adorable as Pocahontas, skipping through the fields and innocently curious about all of the changes happening around her. The pair of Kilcher and Colin Farrell made for tasty visuals during long scenes where they discovered each other, while learning each other's languages. The viewer gains an incredibly deep insight into the love between Smith and Pocahontas in a very mature way by listening to the inner dialogue going through their minds, courtesy of hazy voiceovers that make up the majority of the film's dialogue.
I was, I am happy to admit, wrong about the slaughter of innocent "naturals," as the Native Americans were called by the English settlers. The treatment of Pocahontas and the Powhatans (her people) is a second or third point in the film, and it was good to see that their strength was well balanced with that of the English. According to the film, the dominant danger that the Powhatans face from the English settlers seemed to be their increasing paranoia brought on by insanity as they realize that they have no idea how to take care of themselves or their new colony in this primitive place.
My favorite character in the film, and the only performance worth noting out of all of the various actors, was that of Christopher Plummer in the role of Captain Newport, who comes across as the only one of the bunch who seems to have a plan and a level head for the risky and complicated task of setting up a new colony. Unfortunately, our Captain pops in and out between his excursions back and forth to mother England to offer strong logical speeches that go in one of the group's collective ear and out the other the moment his ship sails away.
RATING: Don't Bother