Susan Granger’s review of “The New World” (New Line Cinema)
Writer/director Terrence Malick relishes poetic imagery the way other filmmakers devour plot and characters. In his movies, the scenery is often more memorable than the scenes.
It’s 1607 when three ships commissioned by the London Virginia Company land on the shores of the James River. Captain John Smith (Colin Farrell) and his British cohorts are see America for the first time, along with the exotic, brown-skinned “naturals.” While Smith and some of his men venture deep into the forest to meet with the feared Powhatan chief (August Schellenberg), others establish the colony that will become Jamestown. Starvation and disease may ravage others, yet Smith frolics in the splendor of the bucolic landscape, playfully rolling in the waving maize with the chief’s smitten daughter, Pocahontas (15 year-old Q’Orianka Kilcher). Although their idealized “romance” was probably more fiction than fact, it occupies the majority of the narrative. Eventually, Pocahontas will surrender to 17th century London “civilization” in high heels and a corset as she acquires an aristocratic husband (Christian Bale) and heartbreak.
Like in “Days of Heaven,” “Badlands” and “The Thin Red Line,” Malick reflects on innocence and paradise lost, utilizing voice-overs and redundant internal monologues, aided by Emmanuel Lubezki’s photography, Jack Fisk’s production design, Jacqueline West’s costumes and James Horner’s musical score, which incorporates Wagner and Mozart. Actors Christopher Plummer, David Thewlis, Wes Studi and Yorick Van Wageningen appear and evaporate, leaving little impression. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The New World” is a lyrical, meditative, slow-paced 6. Sumptuous but sleep-inducing, think of it as “Pocahontas” minus the songs.
