The New World       2005       Terrence Malick

I had believed for the longest time that The Last Emperor, Bertolucci's masterpiece from 1987, was quite possibly the most beautiful and lyrical film I had ever seen.  I have come to understand since then that although masterful, and beautiful in its own way, that film was cynical, or at best tainted with a kind of masochistic interest in destroying our perceptions of romanticism about the ancient world of ancestry and racial dominance.  His work also not so subtly raises the efficacy of the Red World of Communism at subduing the human desire to elevate the individual.

Well, now I have a new favorite film.  I can say without any reservation at all that The New World, Terrence Malick's own masterpiece of just a few years ago, 2005 release, is the most beautiful film I've ever seen, period.  It took me 4 viewings to really take it all in, it is so massive in scope.  When I say scope, however, do not be misled by the idea that somehow the simple story in history is what I'm referring to.  That can be told in a few short sentences to schoolchildren during a history lesson, and is all too true as well.   What I mean by scope is the reach of implications that lie under every wave of ocean footage, of flowing river eddy, in every dirt-buried fish scale, and look of the eyes of the natives as they stare into Lubezki's lens, taking their direction from Malick. 

The naturalism that embodies Malick's work is not that of Margaret Mead. It is sensitized by the Judeo-Christian view, yet also without pulling any punches at the harsh juxtaposition of the utterly confused, helpless, and deranged world of the white man as he struggles to come to grips in this new virgin territory.  The divine right of kings, privilege, society, order, industrialism, machinery, and superiority meet with the harsh reality of the untamed wild, Virginia. Without any words at all of sanctimonious histrionic claptrap woven into the script, Malick manages to challenge, without reservation, the calamity of the white man's invasion, religious justifications and all.  If you can view this film without a sense of loss, without a sense of questioning of your own life and place in this earth, then go rent a Disney flick at a Redbox.

But it is much more than that as well.  Interwoven is the complex web of desire, fulfillment, longing, romance if you will, and difficulty of the human love story, and how the working out of those relationships are laid siege to over and against the backdrop of forces and purposes allied against it.  There is a true love story going on here that has everything to do with fidelity and truth, and laying bare of the intentions of man, and how that mirrors the events themselves.  Masterful writing.  Absolutely masterful.  And here I was thinking that the basic children's story was enough in its naiveté.

I'd like to say more, but it's late and I'm really tired and must get this down while it's fresh.  No other film has touched this subject with the same kind of honesty and sensitivity, but mostly beauty and artistic perfection.  I own the BluRay copy, and will doubtless see it again a few more times, while attempting to share it with others.

More than 5 stars.