The Story of Pocohontas

Rating: 7/10 (7 February 2006)

I finally got around to seeing this movie and for me it was interesting in many ways but disappointing in many ways as well. Still, this movie gives both an interesting, quiet glimpse of a New World ... and uses this to deliver a deeply appealing Story of Pocahontas ... and this is the Story that really drives the movie, IMHO.
I like the cinematography ... especially the very moving, very convincing initial glimpses of the New World; and almost all of the visual scenes in England.
Acting is generally OK. With one important exception: Q'Orianka Kilcher as Pocohontas/Rebecca. This young lady is simply superb in my opinion. She has a wonderfully winsome quality about her, a lovely smile, and as it transpired ... to my surprise ... that this movie becomes above all *her* story ... she carries off this really very complex role with an appealingly convincing authority from start to finish. What a wonderful characterization. Many thanks, Ms. Kilcher! The depiction of the Native Americans ... innovatively styled the "Naturals" in the movie ... is to me very appealing and interesting but also (alas) too steeped in the Noble Savage tradition for my own taste. The early Bad Europeans vs Good Natives depiction is simply unconvincing.
The music at the beginning and toward the end seems to me to support the developments and mood very well indeed. However, narrative and inner voicings sometimes sound simply too loud. Some of the things said I couldn't make out; I don't know if that's just me or not ... but that happened so much that I wondered if either sound was defective, or direction perhaps erred in permitting slovenly enunciation.
The script, unfortunately, seems to me very poor and very unconvincing ... there are simply an enormous number of "holes" that kept challenging my attempt to surrender to the movie's imaginative depiction of history. The sort of Romeo & Juliet depiction of Pocohontas & John Smith is fine by me, but adding in a full scale love triangle to me needlessly complicates what is already a very full plot.
The polyvocalization and the "stream of consciousness" scene sequences in the middle do not really work very well for me at all. The slow, steady pace seems to me to drag at times. And I don't know when last I've seen a "mainstream" movie that seemed so laconic. Plain vocal communication was amazingly sparse; too sparse.
The overall contrast between the New World in America and the New World in England to me does make for a wonderful taste of one view of the history of the period. The clash of cultures and the historical setting make a truly wonderful context for this wonderful story of Kilcher/Pocohontas. Themes of individual and history, and choice and destiny, of truth and dream, are all woven into both the historical/cultural contest and the personal Story of Pocohontas in a very appealing way despite the drawbacks mentioned above.