Zach Sage’s review published on Letterboxd:
"Did you find your Indies, John? You shall."
"I may have sailed past them."
Taken as a whole, it's no surprise that Terrence Malick's work would drift further away from the more traditional dramatic storytelling to more ambitious and abstract tone poems.
That drifting approach is fitting for The New World. It's aim is not to solely tell a story of history but also a romance and a spiritual experience. It all works through Malick's intuitive way of storytelling. It's told through that whispery voiceover and the fluid imagery. Emmanuel Lubezki's cinematography has never felt more woundrous and immersive than here. You can feel the breeze and sunlight on your face, sense the heat of the rain, and reach out and touch the land. The tapestry of images is as mystical as any spell.
The story is one of cultural clash and discovery. There is the new world the settlers discovered and the one Pocahantas does. We first see the boats of the settlers from the indigenous peoples point of view and we experiences their fear, wonder, and Pocahantas' curiousity to these strangers along with them. Q'orianka Kilcher's stunning performance is among the best in a small but nevertheless stacked cast of incredible talents. She expresses a naturalistic tenderness as her hopeful curiousity gives way to bittersweet alienation. There is empathy in her story; someone wonderous about a person feeling alien in her world and then becoming an alien in theirs.
It is immensley powerful right up to its final minutes. Serene, breathtaking, and impressionistic on the senses that gifts you a few more moments of beauty before saying goodbye. This is the poetic cinema you have been searching for.
And I hear the Extended Cut is even better.
