The New World
A yummy Thanksgiving Movie Treat for you to enjoy this holiday!
No it doesn't feature a storybook pilgrims and Native Americans feast. Nonetheless, it's Terrence Malick's 2005 drama about the founding of Virginia's Jamestown settlement, and the mythical romance that blossoms between British Captain John Smith (Colin Farrell) and Native American Pocahontas (Q'orianka Kilcher). The lyrical, haunting story of America's birth is an ideal masterpiece to experience on Thanksgiving.
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Captain Smith is spared his mutinous hanging sentence after Captain Newport's ship arrives in 1607 to found Jamestown, an English colony in Virginia. The initially friendly natives, who have no personal property concept, turn hostile after a "theft" is "punished" violently on the spot. During an armed exploration, Smith is captured, but he is spared when the chief's favorite daughter Pocahontas pleads for the stranger who soon becomes her lover and learns to love their naive "savage" way of harmonious life. Ultimately, he returns to the grim fort, where people would starve if Pocahontas hadn't arranged for Indian generosity. Alas, each side soon brands the lovers traitors. She is banished and he is flogged as introduction to slavish toiling. Changes turn again, leading Smith to accept a northern-more mission. The anglicized Pocahontas believes him dead, and she becomes the mother of aristocratic new lover John Rolfe's son. They'll meet again for a finale in England.
*Movie information in Story Line, Details and Cast sections from IMDb and/or Amazon Movies.
Genres: Drama, Romance
Release Date: January 20, 2006
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) Rating: PG-13 (Parents Strongly Cautioned)
Director: Terrence Malick
Studio: New Line
Review:
"Audiences will be very divided."
13 January 2006 | by A_Roode (Halifax, Nova Scotia) –
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.
Starring:
Colin Farrell, Q'orianka Kilcher, Christopher Plummer
Supporting Actors:
Christian Bale, August Schellenberg, Wes Studi, David Thewlis, Yorick van Wageningen, Raoul Max Trujillo, Michael Greyeyes, Kalani Queypo, Ben Mendelsohn, Noah Taylor, Brían F. O'Byrne, Ben Chaplin, Jamie Harris, Janine Duvitski, Eddie Marsan, Joe Inscoe, Jake Curran