Combustible Celluloid


New movie reviews, DVD reviews, interviews, and all things film.

 
Home | Archive | About | Cinematical.com | Lists | News | Links | E-mail me | Sign up for my weekly newsletter!  
 



Armored **1/2
Invictus ***
The Lovely Bones **1/2
Me and Orson Welles ***
The Princess and the Frog ***1/2
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee **1/2
A Single Man ***
Transylmania [zero stars]
Uncertainty ***
Up in the Air ***
More
 




The Cove
The Dead
Gozu
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Julie & Julia
Public Enemies
World's Greatest Dad
More
 

Film Features

Richard Linklater
John Woo
Jared and Jerusha Hess
Essential Halloween Movies
Michael Stuhlbarg
Jane Campion
Bobcat Goldthwait
Hugh Dancy
Kathryn Bigelow
Willem Dafoe: The 2009 CineVegas Interview
David Carradine
A 2002 Interview with Edward Asner
Vinessa Shaw
Henry Selick
2008: The Year's Ten Best Films
The San Francisco Film Critics Circle Awards 2008
The 25 Best DVDs of 2008
Bruce Campbell
Darren Aronofsky and Marisa Tomei
Josh Brolin
A Tribute to Paul Newman
Steve Coogan on Hamlet 2
Manny Farber (1917-2008)
Bernie Mac (1957-2008)
Emily Mortimer
Brad Anderson
Don Cheadle at CineVegas
Abel Ferrara at CineVegas
Tina Sinatra
My Top 100 Films [Updated]
My Top 60 Directors [Updated]
The Top 50 Movies of the Past Ten Years (1997-2006)
Terry Zwigoff on the new Bad Santa Director's Cut
Alfonso Cuarón Interview
Guillermo Del Toro Interview
Christmas Movies
Combustible Celluloid's Big Guide to Halloween & Horror Movies
Cult Movies
Actress Interview Gallery
The Top 100
More Features and Interviews
 

Film Books

Not Quite a Memoir: Of Films, Books, the World, by Judy Stone
James Agee: The Library of America Collection, by James Agee
Just Making Movies, by Ronald L. Davis
Guide to Essential Movies, by Joe Leydon
Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood, by Robert S. Birchard
Profoundly Disturbing, by Joe Bob Briggs
A Third Face, by Samuel Fuller
Dark Lover, by Emily Leider
Agee on Film, by James Agee
Lulu in Hollywood, by Louise Brooks
Negative Space, by Manny Farber
5001 Nights at the Movies, by Pauline Kael
More Books
 



Home
Reviews A-C
Reviews D-F
Reviews G-J
Reviews K-M
Reviews N-Q
Reviews R-T
Reviews U-Z
 

The online film magazine Combustible Celluloid offers new movie reviews, DVD reviews, film reviews, actor interviews, actress interviews, director interviews, film books and all things cinema related for the thoughtful and passionate. Online for ten years! Over 3000 reviews!

 
SEARCH MOVIES / CELEB

Advanced Search

 
© 1997-2009 Combustible Celluloid



The New World (2005)

Rating: 4 Stars (out of 4)

Pocahontas Poetry

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy The New World on DVD

Terrence Malick's fourth film rolls across the screen with undulating waves of tall grass and murky water that laps right up against the edge of your seat. No other director uses his natural environment in such a profoundly physical way. Nature permeates this film. It's everywhere, and it constantly establishes itself in relation to the characters, helping the characters relate to one another.

The characters, of course, are John Smith (Colin Farrell) and Pocahontas (Q'orianka Kilcher), who meet in1607 not long after English settlers arrive in Virginia. A favorite daughter of the Powhatan chief, Pocahontas saves the captured Smith's life, and the two form a unique bond. Newcomer Kilcher portrays the role with an exquisite mix of surprise and curiosity, embodying the character so fully that she may have emerged from a time machine.

As with The Thin Red Line (1998), Malick forgoes traditional plot in favor of pure sensation. Smith and Pocahontas (who is never called by that name) dance through little rituals for each other, teaching each other bits of language and culture, each lost in dazzled adoration for the other. The inquisitive attempts at friendship between the two tribes, the brutal battles, starvation and other points of the story occur as if afterthoughts or dreams.

The main point of The New World is the mixing and mingling of two cultures, each contributing to or taking from the other, and -- finally -- one engulfing another, in a deeply embedded need for order and control where none exists.

The New World can be maddeningly opaque, as when Malick uses his beloved, murmuring voice-over poetry readings. But considering the alternative -- Hollywood dialogue written to sound as if it were spoken in the 17th century -- this technique proves more than efficient. (A second viewing clears things considerably.)

Our story shifts in the final third to an inevitably tragic tone as Smith departs and John Rolfe (Christian Bale) enters the picture and marries Pocahontas. Baptized as "Rebecca," and strapped into tight English clothes, corsets and shoes, she learns to maneuver among the sculpted gardens of England. She meets the king and queen, as magnificent as her own chief once was.

To be sure, The New World is the only film in this safe, bland movie environment that gets anywhere close to grandiose or daring or foolish. It's a welcome act of artistic lunacy and a messy masterpiece that deserves a life well beyond the current awards season.

Note: When The New World screened for awards consideration in December of 2005, it was in a 150-minute cut. The final theatrical release now runs 135 minutes. I was unable to determine just what was cut out, though I was relieved to see that all my favorite moments were still intact. The only difference I noticed was that the current cut moves quite a bit more smoothly and quickly, and a small pacing problem has been cleared up.

DVD Details: New Line's 2006 DVD release comes with a lovely transfer that works surprisingly well on the small screen. It also includes a very good hour-long making-of featurette, filmed entirely on the set and without all the usual clips-n-talking heads. Disappointingly, the mysterious, rarely-photographed Malick does not appear in one second of the footage. (Or, if he did, I didn't recognize him.) If you missed this film in the theater, don't shy away from seeing it now.

See also: The New World: The Extended Cut.

Starring: Colin Farrell, Q'Orianka Kilcher, Christian Bale, Christopher Plummer, Ben Chaplin, Jonathan Pryce, Wes Studi, Noah Taylor, David Thewlis, Irene Bedard
Written by: Terrence Malick
Directed by: Terrence Malick
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some intense battle sequences
Running Time: 135 minutes
Date: December 25, 2005

Home
News
Search Reviews
Classic Movies
DVDs
Features
Film Books
Gallery
Links
About
The Rating System
Email Me
All scribblings © 1997-2009 Combustible Celluloid