Being high on peyote must give a similar feeling

Rating: 6/10 (10 June 2007)

I made the incredible mistake of thinking this movie would be like '' Tristan & Isolde. That it'd be the kind of epic war tale that Hollywoodstudios tend to make once in a while; action-packed romance while being light-hearted and funny at the same time. It wasn't...
Completely ignorant of the complexity of this movie I watched it with a group of friends. None of them highly educated on ''the better movie'', probably not knowing that Fellini isn't an Italian sports car, thinking that a good movie has to be full of action, tits and gore and that drama is for women or gay people. So, to summarize my thoughts, the usual mainstream crowd. They thought that this movie sucked, and I can't blame them. So to be honest, maybe my judgment is colored by their negative response during the movie.
I myself am very fond of the first ten minutes of '' Once upon a time in the west ''. Building up the tension by just showing some strong visual imagery, like the turning wheel of the windmill, a fly bothering a man and people waiting for things to come. '' The new world '' is like this; rather than having dialog or action in it, it tries to tell a story by showing images of nature and people staring to each other. But unlike '' Once upon...'' this isn't just a phase of the movie, this is everything, this is THE movie. It makes this picture very inaccessible and boring. It also doesn't help that the few lines of dialog in it are just some random thoughts about love, like: Pocahontas: He is like a tree. He shelters me. I lie in his shade, or, Pocahontas: Mother, why can I not feel as I should... must? Once false, I must not be again. Take out the thorn.
It's like all the main characters are high on peyote and in their highness try to say something worthy about life and love. It felt like complete randomness to me.
Okay, so far all of the bad things about this movie, I must also say that at times I felt like it was film-making in its purest form. I really adored the scenes in which John Smith learned English to Pocahontas, or, when Pocahontas is seeing the cold and dirty England for the first time in her life. These sporadic moments levitate the movie to a higher level, but they don't make up for the boring feeling the movie as a whole gives.