The piece of a true artist

Rating: 10/10 (21 January 2006)

I remember the vivid discussion that took place back in 1998, when Spielberg came out with the shocking "Saving Private Ryan" and Malick showed up again on the film-making surface after an odd 20 years by making "The Thin Red Line". What you have to understand is that, exclaiming the heated conversations eight years ago, there is a fundamental difference in the philosophy of making movies for the two.
Whereas Spielberg is all about excitement and action, Malick is filmed poetry. Dialogue is limited to a certain extent. All that counts is the visual impression and the feelings it leaves you with. Malick is a director who makes you think, he virtually forces you to it. The way he portrays nature and its relationship towards us humans (and vice versa) is unbelievably stunning. The theatre was all quiet as if a hidden force had taken all their breath away. Awesome.
Just like the way the old painting masters stunned the artistic world with their craft hundreds of years ago, Malick steers the art of movie-making in his very own direction.
One can only admire his will to release films that go against the commercial stream of Hollywood. It is indeed fascinating that there are still moviegoers out there that appreciate quality and don't mind sitting in the theatre for 2 1/2 hours. I usually am under the impression that we're too much conditioned to the 100 minutes-movie nowadays and that effects and flat dialogue are destroying the art completely. We're sold for dumb. Luckily enough, the theatre I was in was almost sold out, but the average age as well as the intellectual standard was probably slightly higher than among the masses who went to see the sequel to "Underworld" the same evening.
As for "The New World", Malick continues where he left us with James Caviezel's character in "The Thin Red Line". The connection is undoubtedly there. Colin Farrell, for once in a very quiet role, plays the troubled observer, the twisted conqueror of a new, unknown world and soon finds himself torn between the demands of his previous life and the chances of creating a new one and starting from scratch on the American continent. Yes, I'm usually not the biggest Farrell fan, but it's all in his sad eyes and tormented facial expressions. I think his talent just got wasted in the past years and I congratulate him for being able to break out of his stereotypical and flat tough guy image.
Q'Orianka Kilcher is just plain astonishing. You could never tell that she was only 15 when the movie was shot. Her innocence and easiness is beautifully captured on screen and she fits the part perfectly. But the same goes for the entire cast, very good choice overall.
I can't tell whether the historical background is depicted precisely enough. 400 years have passed and its certainly impossible to get it all straight. Therefore, I won't get into the discussion about the Native's looks or the English slur of that time. What I liked, however, is the last fourth of the movie and the juxtaposition of the New World vs. the Old World. What a weird scene that must've been, having Natives running around in English gardens. Priceless.
Hopefully, Malick will let us see more of the story with a longer Director's cut or some bonus features on DVD (which I'll certainly buy). There were a couple of bits in the movie, especially towards the end, where time jumped way too fast and you really had to be attentive enough to grasp the story. And sometimes during the middle part, where Farrell and Kilcher are coming closer, there are a few repetitious scenes of them two out in the fields which could've been cut.
Of course, this is not a perfect movie, but it comes very close to it. Maybe in a couple of decades, people will talk about it like they used to talk about a Van Gogh in an art gallery and say, "See, that's a true Malick. Isn't it beautiful?". He always lets you wait, but it's absolutely worth it.