Review of The New World (2005) by Rachel R — 04 Jun 2012

The Great Misrepresented American Love Story.

This film is more historically accurate than the Disney version. However, it shares one thing in common. All versions of this story do ever since John Smith (here Colin Ferrell) wrote his version of the events of the beginning of the Jamestown colony. We've considered it the Great American Romance, the colonial [i]Romeo and Juliet[/i], the first true romance in the cultural iconography of what is now the United States. Unfortunately, the only person who ever told that version of events and was a participant was John Smith himself. Few historians really believe it to be an accurate description of what happened; at best, they say, he misunderstood an adoption ritual which included a ceremonial death and rebirth. At worst, he made the whole thing up. (Personally, I believe he deliberately misrepresented an adoption ritual.) But that story isn't romantic, and there was little about the true history of Jamestown that was.

Smith, along with Captain Newport (Christopher Plummer), Wingfield (David Thewlis), and others, arrives in Virginia in May of 1607. It is a new and alien land for the Englishmen. Not far away are a group of "Naturals," the natives of the land. Newport chooses the swampy location to settle because he doesn't want to travel any further, but it isn't the best place for a settlement. Their supplies are tainted and running out. The men are more interested in mining for gold than planting crops. At first, they believe that they will be able to trade with the natives upriver when their supplies run out, but conflict is almost immediate. Smith is the only person with any military experience, so he is sent to negotiate with Powhatan (August Schellenberg). It is while he is there that he meets the girl nicknamed Pocahontas (Q'orianka Kilcher), Powhatan's daughter. She saves his life when her father's warriors would dash out his brains. And, yes, they fall in love.

The movie is relatively accurate in that Smith is sent away from the colony (though when and why is wrong), and Pocahontas ends up living in Jamestown. She is baptized with the name Rebecca. She is told that Smith has drowned. This is why she is persuaded to marry John Rolfe (Christian Bale), despite the fact that she believes herself married to Smith. When she finds out he is alive, she tells Rolfe that they cannot be together, because she is already married. This after they have their son, Thomas (Jonathan Gonitel)--notably absent from Disney's telling of the story. The dress she is wearing when she is presented to King James (Jonathan Pryce) and Queen Anne (Alexandra Malick, the director's wife) is based on a dress she is wearing in a portrait known to be of her, but it is nothing like so beautiful as the one she supposedly was actually wearing at the time. And indeed, the movie cuts off and does not tell us the eventual fate of any of these people, even though "Rebecca" died pretty much when the credits start.

However, the portrayal of this woman is extremely romanticized. The sight of her draped in a deerskin (from a Sri Lankan deer, it's worth noting), coming through the snow to bring food to the Jamestown settlers that first winter is a beautiful one, but it does not seem to be based on anything she ever actually did. There is no evidence, even if you accept Smith's writings on their face, of an actual romance between him and Pocahontas--who was eleven at the time--and indeed she may have been married to a warrior of her tribe between Smith's departure and her abduction to become a hostage in Jamestown. Heck, I'm pretty sure there's no evidence that she was thrown out of her father's home, and she certainly wasn't a princess by the standards of her people. (She is dubbed "Lady Rebecca," which is a close enough parallel.) Chronology is shifted to make the story more moving. The horrors of Jamestown are certainly alluded to, but it's implied that she is able to alleviate them.

Oh, it's certainly a beautiful movie. The box declares that this is "the greatest historical romance since [i]Titanic[/i]," and my immediate response was, "I was already unsure that I wanted to see this!" You see, it is like every other Terrence Malick movie I've seen so far except [i]Badlands[/i]. They are lovely, lovely movies, and they are exceedingly dull. I have decided that [i]Tree of Life[/i] is a game on Malick's part to see how many people he can get to insist they know exactly what he's trying to say with it. And this . . . I can see its technical quality, and it certainly deserved the cinematography Oscar nomination it got. I'd give it a nomination for Art Direction, too, given that [i]Memoirs of a Geisha[/i] actually won. It is beautiful. It was filmed almost entirely using natural light. The costumes (also won that year by [i]Memoirs of a Geisha[/i]) were impressive. And man, but it was dull. Even with the heavy romance forced into the story at the expense of accuracy.