THE NEW WORLD (RECOMMENDED... FOR THOSE WHO LIKE THE DIRECTOR'S WORK)

To say that the movies of Terrence Malick are an acquired taste is a bit of an understatement. For those of us who admire the director’s work, descriptions like poetic, and lyrical have entered the realm of cliché. His three films, Badlands, Days Of Heaven and The Thin Red Line, unfurl at a deliberate and meditative pace, transporting appreciative audiences to a world where the senses are overwhelmed by small moments: shrapnel patterns in a leaf, a hesitant glance back, the sound of footfall on frozen ground.

Using a God’s eye perspective, Malick obsessively creates an immersive environment, relying on sweeping shots of nature and intimate close ups while dipping into his characters’ innermost thoughts with whispery voice-overs. For the most part, he defies the typical narrative conventions of film; rarely identifying a specific protagonist and often abandoning plot exposition. It is cinema in purely experiential terms, inviting the viewer to absorb, instead of simply watch, his movies.

To the unconvinced, however, Malick’s style and pace can be like watching paint dry on a wall. His latest effort, The New World, will do nothing to change that impression.

Returning to his favorite theme of paradise lost, the celebrated filmmaker tackles the legend of Pocahontas, presenting it as a fever dream of innocence tainted. Less interested in myth or history, Malick endeavors to recreate how it must have felt for two radically different worlds to collide and delivers a sad and hypnotic meditation on the very nature of discovery itself.

The movie opens on an impossibly pristine stretch of the James River. For what seems like an eternity, we move downriver listening to the lush sounds of unspoiled wilderness. Suddenly, ripples shatter the perfect reflection of overhead trees as three large ships sail by. Their presence is unnatural, exciting the natives (referred to as “naturals”) who hide along the shore. The boats are from the London Virginia Company, come to America to establish Jamestown and expand the riches of the British Empire. Chained below deck is the legendary Captain John Smith (Colin Farrell), imprisoned for insubordination.

Once camp has been established, Smith, the only professional soldier among them, is ordered into the wilds to find the naturals’ ‘king’ and announce the colonist’s intentions. He promptly gets lost and captured. But the Chief’s daughter, Pocahontas (newcomer Q'Orianka Kilcher), intervenes and Smith is spared execution.

Though her name is never actually spoken, Pocahontas becomes the film’s focus at this point. Smith falls for the spirited young Indian maiden and their relationship, yet another undiscovered country, becomes a wordless exploration of the world around them. It isn’t long, however, before suspicions and antagonisms escalate between the English colonists and American natives and political realities inevitably separates the two lovers..

The New World isn’t a story of romance thwarted, however. It is an exploration of how one culture can seduce and ultimately destroy another. Unexpectedly, Farrell’s character takes off half way through the film, leaving Pocahontas disgraced in the eyes of her people. She is forced to live with the colonists, where she is christened Rebecca, and adapts to their way of life. This is her 'new world;' a personal voyage through uncharted social and emotional territory. She becomes accepted by the settlers, weds and, eventually, learns to love another man (Christian Bale), visits England as a celebrity, and finally reconnects with Smith -- the man who changed everything

Amazingly, Malick explores the intersection of these two worlds without cynicism or irony. Neither side is painted as evil and he tries, with mixed success, to demystify these characters' iconic reputations. The New World isn’t a history lesson or revisionist view of the past. It is an imagining of what the world felt like before and after it irrevocably changed.

The cast is uniformly good but first-timer Kilcher astounds. Her performance is so truthful and unmannered it’s unnerving. Equal moving, is Malick’s use of music. While James Horner’s haunting score may be the best he’s written in years, it’s the film’s masterful exploitation of Wagner and Mozart that makes the biggest impact. The New World uses music in a uniquely physical way. Coupled to Emmanuel Lubezki’s incredible cinematography, it assaults the senses with disorienting sound and light, evoking the grandeur of nature and the exhilaration of discovery.

Ultimately, there is a moral and social consequence to discovery. Near the end of the film, Malick returns us to the James River, following the same path as the opening. Nothing has changed externally but the land has now been imprinted with mankind's fingerprints and history promises that this vast and unspoiled Eden will soon be gone forever. It is a testament to Terrance Malick’s skills as a director that for nearly an hour we get a sense of what was ultimately lost.