LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Terrence Malick: John Smith
built 236 days ago
If film can achieve sheer apports with its art, then Terrence Malick is the lone levitator and magician around. The only minor negative point in this film, and it’s very minor, is that as well-done as the voiceovers are the film might have been better off without them, for some of the poetic statements of Smith, Rolfe, and Pocahontas seem a bit over the heads of their 17th Century low born utterers- unlike those in his earlier films. Of all the films that are getting Oscar buzz- from worthy films like Capote and Shopgirl, to blatantly PC fodder like Brokeback Mountain, this is- easily- the best film that last year produced. Yet, it will only get some cinematography, editing, scoring, or other minor nods.
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As Mr. Malick realized, the issue is not length itself, but what works on screen. The original "New World" created the satisfying sense of having been through an epic experience, following Pocahontas (Q'orianka Kilcher) from her innocent youth, through her romance with Smith (Colin Farrell), her marriage to another settler, John Rolfe (Christian Bale) and her trip to London, where she is presented to the king. But that version ... included more of what Ms. Green calls "leisure shots" and others might call travelogues: pretty pictures of birds flying, water flowing, trees growing, many appearing at the start, when Pocahontas inhabits a world before the English.
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This frequently heroic, often bittersweet material has paid Hollywood dividends more than once over the years; but true to his reputation, Malick didn't handle the story with big-time ticket sales in mind. While he serves up the love scenes and battle sequences most moviegoers demand from historical sagas, he's couched the story in a loosely strung-together structure with a dearth of dramatic climaxes. Nor is the cast exactly lustrous: Colin Farrell as Smith, teenager Q'orianka Kilcher as Pocahontas, and Christian Bale as Rolfe, who doesn't enter the picture until it's two-thirds over. The film has so little dialogue that it's been likened to a silent movie. And sometimes the screen goes blank simply because Malick's sense of visual rhythm calls for it.
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John Smith