The New World - Il nuovo mondo

Let me start off by saying that I was introduced to the films of Terrence Malick in 1998 when I watched and was blown away by 'The Thin Red Line.' It is one of the best war movies ever made and while I can rant about it at length, that review belongs on a different page. It was with great anticipation that I waited for 'The New World.' I was lucky enough to get tickets to an advance screening and the theatre was full of people like me. Their take on the film was almost as interesting as the film was.

'The New World' is a film that will draw out one of two very powerful emotions: Love or Hate. I really don't believe there is a middle ground in this case. I think it is quite possibly the most beautifully photographed film I have ever seen. It is astonishing. The score from James Horner is, in my opinion, his greatest work. He's a wonderful composer but he has exceeded himself on every level. This is a movie that can be watched like art (because it is) and listened to as a symphony (it might as well be one). Very few movies leave me stunned and 'The New World' is so luscious that I think it is worth the journey, even if it is only to look at how beautiful it is and listen to how glorious it is. Is that a superficial way of looking at things? Perhaps, but they are the film's two most brilliant qualities.

'The New World' does have problems and I think it falls very much into a 'buyer beware' category. Malick's movie is long -- very long -- and feels every moment of it. I don't mind these things because I found it enchanting; many in the audience with me did not. These are not people who are 'dumb,' or who 'don't get it.' They are people who are used to 99% of the films that you will see. 'The New World' is very self-indulgent at times. No one can reasonably defend the pace of the film. I want to and I can't. This is a movie so full of substance that it is detrimental. It is so rich and textured that it would be hard to say where things could have been improved, but aside from the first forty minutes which deal largely with the question of whether or not the Europeans can survive the first winter or not, the dramatic 'action,' that is, the engine of a script that pushes one scene into the next, is idling at best. 'The New World' has a plodding pace and it took me on a nice quiet stroll that I enjoyed immensely. I can not, in good conscience though recommend to the man on the street that he go to see it. If less than a third of the theatre I was in walked out, I'd be stunned. I lost count because so many people left. Mostly the middle hour and a half of the film is to blame. Scenes drift from one to the next -- they're stunning and textured and personally I enjoyed them -- but they involved a lot of hanging out. Two people hanging out in the woods. I understand that the film has deep meditative and philosophical meanderings about man's relationship with nature and how one impacts the other. I get it. But a lot of the love story is about two people hanging out in the woods. All the time. If one of them had said 'Let us go watch the grass grow for the afternoon,' it would have been the most honest line in the entire film. It is the only thing I will fault Malick for here because it really does kill the film for a lot of people. His intelligence should not be questioned. I wish only he'd tried to focus the script a bit more and been specific rather than general. Can two people from different cultures be together? We get it already. We got it an hour ago. Oh, more grass growing ... must watch ... ha! Forgive my little joke.

The argument to be made though is that this film has not been made for everyone (the studio is no doubt surprised to learn this and will be scrambling to recover their money -- they did a good thing in making it but they're going to lose their shirts). It was made by Terrence Malick for Terrence Malick. I'm glad to have seen it but I spoke with twenty people who were not. There will be constant arguments on the user boards here at the IMDb. The film is going to have rabidly fanatical supporters who think everyone else is just too stupid to get it. And it is going to be criticized by many, many others who died a thousand deaths just trying to sift through the movie.

Two final thoughts: the first is that I hate myself for having to say anything negative about Malick or his film. He's a special film-maker and his films make it worth going to the theatre. 'The New World' is great but flawed and it is dishonest for anyone to pretend otherwise -- such behaviour is deceitful and pretentious.Thought number two is that although the film is equal parts challenging and rewarding (as great movies should be) it is especially important in the case of 'The New World' to see it in the theatre. It is so majestic in scope that I don't believe the greatest home theatre can do it justice. It is truly epic in its cinematography and score. If it doesn't win Oscars for both we will have witnessed a massive artistic injustice. NOTHING this year, NOTHING has come close to being a threat to 'The New World' for either of those two categories. Appreciate them as they were intended to be seen.

What a beautiful Love Story - the scenery and music is beyond words. Q'Orianka is as beautiful in person as she is on the scene. A must see for any romantic! I can't wait to go back and visit the actual filming site located in Williamsburg, Virginia. Filmed on site at Historic Jamestown and the Jamestown Settlement, it will be interesting to see some of the same scenery that I saw in the movie. The preview at the Kimball Theater in Williamburg Virginia was packed and everyone left with a deeper appreciation for the area. Some of the cast members that were on hand were genuine and sincere and a pleasure to speak with. I highly recommend this film.

Malick's method is to frame films as remembrances. Remembrances of romantic notions, whether freedom, peace, war or love (as his four films trace). This way, he can exploit a languorous floating through remembered reality that never is that gentle or considered in actual reality. He can use his narration as things remembered, floating over the sights. To make this as effective as possible, he plays all sorts of tricks with the sound, having different boundaries of different types between what you see and hear.

Added to this is a considered approach to framing. You may have noticed that most filmmakers stage the action as if the world arranged itself to fit nicely in the window the camera sees. It makes for nice pictures and clear, precise drama, but we know it for what it is, a theatrical device. Malick is like Tarkovsky; he likes to discover things and if the way the world frames things so that they are off the window we see, so be it.

That's why his battle scenes are unique. With most directors, you'll have smiting and dying nicely so that we can see it. Or alternatively, we'll have point of view shots that are hectic as if we were a participant. These two battle scenes have the camera as a disembodied eye that shifts about as if it were the eye of dreams, or nearly lucid recalling or even retrospective invention. Sometimes hectic as if it were point of view, but never looking at what a combatant would, instead having a poetic avoidance.

I first met Malick when he was a lecturer at MIT and I a philosophy student. He spoke of French Objectivism, and was clearly bothered by how the notation and language constrained the ideas. At the time, I was doing my thesis on Thomas Harriot, who is the hidden motivator behind everything in this story — the real story. Malick never saw the thesis because by the time it was finished, he was off to explore this business of experiencing from the "outside" in cinematic language.

But Harriot is likely the inventor of the "external viewer of self" notions that Malick liked (as they reappeared in the French '60s) and uses in his philosophy of film. Harriot suggested he got it from the Chesapeake Indians. So the circle closes: a film about a people using their own mystical memory-visions.

If you take a little time to tune yourself to Malick's channel, you will find his work to be transcendent. I consider this one of the best films of 2005, despite its apparent commercial gloss and the mistaken notion that most will have that it is a love story. It is about remembering and inventing love in retrospect. A world is always new so long as the imagination of recall is supple.

+++++++++

The rest of this comment is of an historical nature. The love story is made up of course, but that's apt for a movie that is about invented memory. The Indians are mostly wrong, the body paint, hair and dress; according to the only document we have, the John White paintings, men and women were mostly nude even in winter and prided themselves on tolerance to the cold. There is no mention of the famous local hallucinogen, cypress puccoon which was widely traded and how a stone age people were able to survive in a land a hundred miles from the nearest stone.

(My original comment was deleted, presumably because there was a note about the unpeaceful nature of the people. Readers may want to consult good histories for that.)

Harriot (a scientist and mage) wintered over with a nearby "holy" tribe in 1585, and after he left, Powhatan destroyed the tribe lest they combine their magic with Harriot's and overcome his stranglehold on taxes. He married the wives of the chiefs he murdered. Matoaka (Pocahontas) was almost surely the offspring of this union and it is why he sent her as a naked 10 year old to negotiate with the Jamestown settlers, who Powhatan thought was Harriot returning.

Powhatan never exiled Matoaka. When negotiations with the settlers failed, he married her off to a satrap in the north to expand his empire. From there she was kidnapped. When he knew that Rolfe had shamelessly promoted his marriage to an Indian princess and arranged an audience with the King, Powhatan sent the two holy men to accompany and protect her, those you see here. She presented to James, her father's cloak that is also shown in the movie. It was designed by Harriot for the his host, the husband of Matoaka's mother.

The scenery is very accurate and was filmed where things actually happened and in a few spots within a few hundred yards of where Harriot wintered over (and I now reside).

The Harriot/Matoaka story is a key source for Shakespeare's "The Tempest," and it is likely that Shakespeare actually met Matoaka when she visited Harriot. One of the accompanying Indian priests had an argument over God with a Nixon-like cleric who subsequently published a list of all the demons thus mentioned. You can see that list of demons appearing throughout "King Lear."

Viewers interested in racial matters may be interested to know that by the time of these events, Spain and Portugal had already imported over a half a million African slaves to South and Central America.

Ted's Evaluation -- 4 of 3: Every cineliterate person should experience this.

The virginian scenery stole the show as the best actor, there were plenty of admirable qualities to the movie, but the actor mostly just existed on the screen while beautiful Virginia continued to present absolute majesty all around them.

If there was a profound line spoken In the movie, it was whispered, lost in the overly loud score that meandered around without purpose. Meanwhile, one could lose themselves in the sun glistened waters, the wind swept grasses, the warm rich dirt.

Seriously, forget trying to enjoy dialogue or plot, you'll barely see it anyway, just put it on while cooking dinner or something, you'll easily have no idea what's going on, but suddenly want to visit Virginia.

EXTENDED CUT

I was digging the first part but then the plot kinda slowed down and nothing really happened besides beautiful cinematography. The pacing wasn't that good like in his other movies, maybe I'll like the shorter version more. Criterion edition of this movie looks incredible, one of the best looking films of 2000s. Lubezki really be carrying three directors huh