amolad

I was surprised at how gripping this documentary was. Directors Elena Gaby and Taryn Southern relay some complex ideas and technologies with clarity, and never lose focus on the audience's emotional connection to the people who are being helped by this technology. We come to love these characters and care about them even as our minds are being stimulated by the cutting-edge and mindblowing techniques. It's a really interesting and inspiring film.

I loved "The Thin Red Line" as well as Terrence Malick's earlier movies, and "The New World," which I saw tonight at a guild screening, is very similar in style to "The Thin Red Line." It is intensely visual, with many wordless sequences, and uses interior monologues/voice-over from several characters. Also like "The Thin Red Line," it creates a tapestry of nature and the elements to define its characters. The landscape, rivers, fields and forests are very much prominent characters here. The film is at times utterly mesmerizing and captivating on a visual level. However, it saddens me to say that overall, "The New World" just isn't THAT emotionally involving. At 2.5 hours, it's long. And what's worse, it feels it.

The cast does a fine job, and Q'orianka Kilcher is especially talented (and lovely), but the script isn't as strong or as focused as it needed to be. Still, I admired several sequences of powerfully visual storytelling, especially those depicting the lives of the native Americans, so in the end I would have to call my opinion mixed.