Very interesting

Rating: 7/10 (8 June 2009)

These days we're never sure if we're seeing revisionist history, or corrections to the revisionist history of past movie myth-makers. Terrence Malick and his collaborators made the interesting choice, in telling the tale of the Jamestown settlement, of avoiding details altogether and basically turning it into a totally immersive and impressionistic version of history. I have to say I like the movie overall, although it takes a bit of a nosedive in the last portion for me.
Malick's representation of Jamestown itself is flawless as far as I can tell. I recognized the location as the exact copy of that part of Virginia, being raised in Virginia myself and having been to Jamestown many times, so I wasn't surprised to learn that it was filmed 5 miles from the original site of the colony. The amount of dedication and detail given to the Native American habitats and inhabitants is equal to that given to the English colonists. Instead of the kind of groan-inducing reverse-propaganda and revisionism that you see in films like "Dances with Wolves", this film depicts the natives as very "savage" but never lets you doubt that they had good reason to treat the invaders in precisely this way. It allows you to basically empathize with both sides. In a general sense, what was happening was a tragedy, the loss of an entire world of cultures. Yes, "New World" is definitely being used here in an ironic sense. However by focusing on individual people like John Rolfe (Christian Bale) and Pocahontas (Q'orianka Kilcher) -- her name is never spoken in the film -- whose lives became entangled in the larger political consequences, the film manages to convey the sense that the moral implications of all these events were never cut and dried. There were never any heroes and villains, as this movie tells the story.
The brilliant and dynamic camera-work in the film is often undermined, however, by inferior performances. Bale never seems to be interesting when he's playing a good guy. Kilcher is stunning to look at but has no real talent in acting. Her whole range of emotions is frowning and laughing. Worst of all is Colin Farrel, strutting about as if lost in some other movie where he actually is the hero. Oddly though, Farrel's character is the most appealing of the bunch. And I was pleased to see the often abused but very talented character actor Michael Savage popping up in a couple scenes.
I'm actually glad I saw this on video, because I think that the pure visual excellence of the movie would have overpowered me in the theater and I might have been tricked into thinking it was a great movie. It is a good movie, but far from great. I recognize and respect the fact that the producers and director took a lot of chances with this movie, and I wish that more films were made this way. However the results are not always 100% convincing or appealing.