The New World
#11 in my movie challenge for the year was a challenging film, Terence Malick’s The New World. I heard several people on their way out say, “I didn’t get that movie.” I don’t think it’s inaccessible, but it requires something on the part of the filmgoer in order to appreciate it. As is typical of Malick’s films, The New World is beautifully filmed, and centers on themes of human violence in the midst of idyllic natural scenes. Colin Farrell as Captain John Smith is a maddening anti-hero in the spirit of Hamlet–introspective, hesitant and passive. Music is deftly deployed. I found it a little too romantically fixated on the natives. Overall, though, this was a beautiful, provocative film and I’m glad I made the effort to see it in theater rather than at home.