Visually beautiful--if you can stay awake

Rating: 6/10 (26 June 2007)

This film tells the familiar story of Pocahontas, Powhatan, John Smith, and John Rolfe in a manner appears to be intended to be more historically accurate than most of the fantasized versions of the story that have been depicted over the years. For the most part, it succeeds, with some glaring exceptions. Malick's most daring venture was to cast a 14 year old actress in the role of Pocahantas, which puts her not far from the age--traditionally 12--that the real Pocahontas was at the time she intervened to save Smith's life. The young actress is half Indian and half Caucasian; I guess they couldn't find a full-blooded Indian for the part. The first disconcerting note, at least for this viewer, occurs fairly early in the film when Pocahontas raises her arms and we see that her armpits are shaved. An Indian girl, in 1607? Not likely! This inattention to detail threw me out of the film's frame of reference, reminding me that I was watching a film and that this is an actress who, even at this tender age, can't allow her image to be besmirched by being filmed with hairy underarms.
The film is visually beautiful, as Malick's films usually are. The camera glides over some of the pastoral scenes, and we get a sense--as we are clearly meant to--of how pristine and unspoiled the North America was before the white man came. The actors in the three principal parts all perform competently and are successful at conveying their thoughts and feelings nonverbally. They don't have much choice, because there is very little dialogue. And, thankfully, the Indians are not portrayed as saintly or noble, but quite accurately as people going about their business who are alternately fascinated by and fearful of these intruders. They rightfully foresee that the settlers might not want much now, but they might want much more later.
So, the film has much to recommend it. But it has a fatal flaw: it is excruciatingly slooooooooooooooooooow and boooooooooooooooooooring. It could easily have been pared by a third and edited to an hour and a half length. Instead it plods on for two and a quarter hours, long long after I had come to appreciate the visual poetry and had gotten its obvious points (in case you don't know what they are, this film will be a delight for tree huggers and cultural relativists).
In the final analysis, I suppose the film is worth seeing, but have a few strong cups of coffee before you do.