The New World

In her essay, “Trash, Art and the Movies,” Pauline Kael wrote:

After all the years of stale, stupid acted-out stories, with less and less for me in them, I am desperate to know something, desperate for facts, for information, for faces of non-actors and for knowledge of how people live—for revelations, not for the little bits of show business detail worked up for us by show-business minds who got them from the same movies we’re tired of.

Enter fifteen-year old Q’Orianka Kilcher, who plays Pocahontas in Terrence Malick’s “The New World,” a film that reminds me instantly of the symphonic resonance of “Amadeus” if coupled with the straightforward documentary of “Grizzly Man”—had Herzog removed all references to Timothy Treadwell and instead comprised the film entirely of the b-roll.

The film opens with Pocahontas’ narration (note that her name is never actually mentioned), “Come spirit. Help us sing the story of our land. You are the mother, we are the field of corn. We rise from out of the soul of you.” There is no music accompanying the opening credits, only sounds of nature.

In April of 1607, as the history books remind us, Captain John Smith (Colin Farrell) and and the Virginia Company—under a grant from King Charles I—settled to colonize what is now Jamestown, Virginia. As far as I know, that’s where the similarities end. As Jennifer Hemmingsen of Indian Country Today notes, historians seem to agree there was no romance between John Smith and Pocahantas. However, I’m not interested in judging the historical accuracy of films as I view all films as essentially derivative in one way or another.

Smith emerges from a tiny boat, shackled. As he reaches the beautiful shores of this strange, new land, the french horns and strings swell up to nearly auditory cacophony—but not quite. I was puzzled at first by this but then I realized the song we’re hearing is not for Smith, but for her. Hemmingsen writes, “[Smith] rubs his eyes. Is she a dream? No, but she is a myth.” True, but what a myth!

Smith is to be hanged, yet Captain Newport (Christopher Plummer) decides to let him go. As this decision seems somewhat inexplicable, my mind shifted momentarily to a possible motive—a declaration by Newport, “I beg you, let not America go wrong in her first hour.” However, this line was omitted from the final cut, probably because it makes absolutely no sense in light of the fact that America as a nation was not so much as conceived by then. More to the point, the film was cut by more than thirty minutes, and thus there are areas here and there that don’t form a cogent narrative. But does that really matter? Here, I’ll attempt to explain why, or why not.

Pocahontas, as depicted in this film, is a tremendously youthful spirit. Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” or Holst’s “Planets Suite” play in the mind when grasping the joy and curiosity held dear to this girl’s heart. It’s not merely a case of the Native mystical stereotype. There are those in her tribe who don’t share her same degree of passion for all things of the earth. She and her brother play like deer in the grass, making antlers with their hands as some of us used to do when we were children.

This serene atmosphere, however, is interrupted as the colonists begin to suspect foul play with their food supply. They become suspicious and hostile toward the natives. John Smith, however, understands that they may have to trade with the natives in the event that their food supplies all go bad. So, he makes an example of one colonist who shoots an indian, and shoves his head in the water.

Smith and a few others proceed up the river and across to a nearby forest, to find the chief in the hope that they can negotiate with him for support. The chief, Pocahontas’ father, is more interested in seeing the settlers leave these lands. Yet Smith stays, and begins to form a bond with Pocahontas that cannot be explained in words.

The director, Terrence Malick, introduces the two to one another through the fisheye-lens of a language barrier. He makes us empathetic to this language barrier by refraining from the use of subtitles in any interchange between the English and the natives (only when the natives speak amongst themselves are we given a translation). This is a particularly fascinating scene, as Pocahontas is describing her people’s words for sky, sun, water… I particularly like her explanation of water—arms undulating like a broad current.

Instead of describing the sky, sun, water, etc. by their visual attributes, she seems to be acting out what they do — water flows, the sun shines, the sky envelops. This is actually a keen insight into the lingustics of many native tribes. Their languages tend to consist of noun-verb hybrids. They only think of an object in terms of what it’s doing at the moment. From their perspective, every thing in this world lives and breathes.

We are informed that, of the twelve wives and one hundred children, the “emperor” (as the colonists call him) cherished Pocahontas the most. In this uniquely orchestrated sequence which we’ve seen before many times—however nowhere near the degree of exuberance and charm exhibited here by Kilcher—we begin to understand her father’s feelings, and his frustration at the pressure placed upon him when the tribe begins to view Pocahontas as a traitor to her people for acclimating to, even aiding, the colonists.

One thing became apparent to me, as I was watching this film. Yes, this is a love story, but not so much between Smith and Pocahontas or (not really a spoiler, unless you skipped US History from grade eight onward) between Pocahontas and Rolfe. This is a love story between Pocahontas and her beloved mother earth. There’s a shot that I’m willing to believe was not assisted by computer graphics, during which Malick’s cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki (whose previous work on “Y Tu Mama Tambien” demonstrates a keen observation while on location), manages to capture a thick swath of birds that change direction midflight, intercut with lightning crackling in the background. Here Malick seems to be the one in love with mother earth.

That is not to say that Malick’s a perfect, brilliant director. I think he has the tendency to be overwrought and, at times, trite… but his penchant for droning, repetitious narration oddly seems to work as a rhythm against the cycles of nature in this film, as though it were an agrarian documentary that only happens to be inhabited by people. Thinking of this film from the point of view of a plot doesn’t work, because it is comprised of images that are often disconnected from one another, yet sharing the same goal—emancipation from the confines of culture (Pocahontas, as it turns out, feels attached to neither her culture nor the western culture she ultimately adopts), as well as from the confines of what defines “conventional” cinema.

While I feel a large part of the critic’s job is to raise questions so that film as a medium is constantly encouraged to move forward, and I have some concerns about the way “The New World” teeters on being a rehash not of previous films of this subject but, of all things, Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” (think of the tree as a monolith and by the end of this film you’ll get what I mean), I still would say the way the power of pure imagery is harnessed in this movie runs circles around Cronenberg’s “A History of Violence” and is among one of the best films I’ve seen in the past year.

There is an image that summarizes the entire triangle between Rolfe, Smith and Pocahontas, and provides an unmistakable character definition. Pocahontas, having moved to England with Rolfe, is standing, in full bodice and skirt, on the thick limb of a gnarled tree. Juxtaposed here are the conventions of the society into which she has assimilated, with her tendency to be unashamed of connecting in such childlike ways to the world around her. What Smith could not grasp is that she is the same person she was when he fell in love with her, but like her, and like Malick, Smith had not fallen in love with her… he fell in love with the world she represents.

The New World• Dolby® Digital surround sound in select theatres • Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 • Running Time: 150 minutes • MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some intense battle sequences. • Distributed by New Line Cinema.

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