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United 93 (2006)
Politics aside, "United 93" crashes and burns like its titular airplane
It seems that Paul Greengrass's "United 93" is difficult to review objectively. Because of its subject matter, viewers think it's a great movie simply out of respect for 9/11; however, to review it by removing it from its social context would be irresponsible. Contrary to much of what I have read about "United 93," I would certainly not venture that it is one of the most important films in modern US history. I was fully aware of the time-line of events of 9/11, which made the movie quite dull and as a result not compelling in the slightest.
This is the first of the many problems with the movie: you already know what is going to happen. From start to finish, the entire plot has been fully documented and hammered into every American mind (fundamentally altering our perception of just about every event in the "post-9/11" world). Knowing that 93 will crash, which airplanes are hijacked, and when they reach their targets sucks all of the tension out of the movie. The only exceptions are those events on the airplane that Greengrass had to concoct to fill the real-time drama. The most intense part was waiting to see when and how the terrorists would take over the plane. Unfortunately, this excitement is diluted by the knowledge that Greengrass had to fabricate most of these scenes, since we know very little about the actual occurrences on the plane.
From this notion comes the second problem, which is Greengrass's direction. As we can see from "The Bourne Supremacy," Greengrass is quite fond of the shaky hand-held camera. He uses it in this case to make the film seem more realistic, almost in a documentary sense. We even have some characters playing themselves, like Ben Sliney, to give it more authenticity. His attempts to blur the line between documentary and drama are nothing short of obnoxious and close to nauseating. The cameras in "United 93" are constantly shaking throughout the entire movie, even inside the control rooms. Greengrass also leaves in shots with intense glare from the sun, which did nothing but give me a headache. Instead of making the action seem more real, the camera work, combined with the fabricated action sequences, just makes the viewer more aware that he's watching a movie.
Perhaps most at fault, however, is that there just isn't enough plot material to fill the movie. The first hour is dreadfully boring. We know what's going to happen, we know how the day develops, and we are given no characters with whom to identify. All we have is a ceaselessly fluttering camera giving us no reprieve from the constant motion sickness and nothing to occupy our minds.
Commendably, Greengrass avoids (for the most part) blatant heart-tugging. Since we don't even know any of the characters names, let alone who they are, we can't identify with their sadness. Greengrass carefully avoids that pitfall in the interest of portraying the victims on flight 93 not as tragic figures, but as heroes. In the sense of honoring the characters, he does succeed, but at the expense of the viewers interest.
Something New (2006)
Less than original in pretense and execution, but still worthy of a viewing
Sanaa Hamri's debut feature "Something New" is a romantic comedy about Kenya, a successful black business woman, and Brian, a white landscape architect. It is as much about the development of their relationship as the development of questions about interracial relationships and racial identification. The film borrows heavily from Douglas Sirk's "All That Heaven Allows" and Todd Haynes' more recent adaptation "Far From Heaven." "Something New" uses these previous films as a starting point for its investigation of what inhibits Kenya and Brian's relationship that crosses racial and class boundaries.
The opening frame immediately recalls both films with its autumn leaves falling to the ground. "Something New" uses the class of the warm tones of the leaves to class with Kenya's dull beige world. Just as "All That Heaven Allows" used the color red for sexual activity, Brian paints Kenya's toes red in a scene that hardly needs symbolic color to insinuate sexuality (it is also pleasantly surprising that the MPAA resisted the R-rating slap for this scene). The film borrows its premise from "Far From Heaven" and flips it around to develop its argument further. Instead of an upper middle class white woman falling for a lower class black gardener, Hamri shifts the focus away from mere prejudice to the more complex issue of racial identity. What inhibits Kenya is not racism but a social pressure for her to maintain her connection to her race.
Not borrowed from Sirk or Haynes is Shane Hurlbut's cinematography. While Kenya is still irrationally afraid of becoming involved with Brian, Hurlbut overexposes the film to create a more significant contrast between Kenya's dark skin and Brian's light skin. The result is also a rather uncomfortable, almost blinding shot because the backgrounds are so bright. Further, when Kenya and Brian are more comfortable with each other, the shot is significantly darker. The beige coloring of the house combined with the low key lighting makes Brian and Kenya's skin nearly identical in shade.
These tactics are unfortunately not well developed, as the film drops these ideas about half way through in the interest of being a cookie-cutter romantic comedy. What is left is the inventive, though still stereotypical, set of parents and friends. Kenya's parents are basically white, but attempt to maintain their black identities through what is shown to be irrational rituals. Kenya has been brought up on the same set of ideals and is consistently ashamed of herself for even entertaining the idea of dating a white man, though she has no idea why. Hamri has no way of conveying these notions except through awkward dialog and lame speeches, with one exception. In another scene that the censors must have missed, Kenya's mother's birthday takes place at a show that can only be viewed as a satire on Kenya's parents attempt to desperately hold onto their African (and it is implied, animalistic) heritage. If only the film could have maintained its momentum with such scenes, it could have transcended its genre.
The film entirely falls apart when the love story must finally develop. It forgets all its previous ideas and plops itself right into the pit of cliché and gimmickry. There is a terrible Cinderella moment after Kenya's father unveils that his character really is the archetypal wise old man in a horrible monologue about racial identity. "Something New" poses the complex problem of racial identity in a mixed world, but the ending sadly fails to explore why it is a problem or to recognize any solution to the problem. The only question is does attempt to answer is the immensely dull "Does love conquer all?" The first half is a good film, if borrowed from previous greats, and worth the recommendation.
Lord of War (2005)
A bold if rudimentary satire, "Lord of War" is a satisfying crime drama
This film is, much like its granddaddy "Scarface," a guilty pleasure. Andrew Niccol's "Lord of War" is in many ways a standard crime lord rise-to-power saga, but manages to shine through the myriad of imitators with a number of daring and refreshing moves. While the plot is perfectly predictable (with a few exceptions), the cinematography is excellent and the subject matter of gun running leaves the possibility of some gutsy satire. Don't expect cinematic genius or a film that will become a cult treasure; just expect to be satisfied for two hours.
Nicolas Cage plays Yuri Orlov, a Ukranian-American who has taken to gunrunning to make his living. I must admit that at first, the name made me cringe and chuckle at the same time, but after a while I was used to it. In his pursuit is the enjoyable but entirely flat Interpol Agent Valentine (Ethan Hawke). The story follows Yuri's rise to power, his marriage to hometown beauty Ava Fontaine (Bridget Moynahan), his struggle to defeat veteran gunrunner Simeon Weisz (Iam Holm), and his evasion of Agent Valentine's painfully by-the-book pursuits. The plot can be predicted almost entirely by supplanting the standard near-misses with the law, desires to go legit, compromises of morality, and inevitable downfall. What is most impressive about this film is not the story but its sheer irreverence for moralization.
Most poignant is the introduction and opening credits. Cage's disembodied voice relates some statistics about guns that you might hear from "Bowling for Columbine." There is one gun for every twelve people in the world. We then see Yuri and he says, "The only question is: How do we arm the other eleven?" After a pause for a guilty snicker, we follow a plate of metal from factor to firearm in an impressively well created (though cartoonish) point-of-view crash course in gun trafficking. The final image in the sequence is the bullet being fired from an AK-47 into the head of an all-too-young African "soldier." This seems cruel and overly graphic, but it is done in such a way that it is detached and satiric, setting the tone for the rest of the film.
The relentless clip at which the film moves helps it avoid plunging into soap box mode. We see Yuri's clearly immoral and illegal acts rapidly enough that we haven't the time to consider them wrong. Niccol's script gives Cage's narration wit and craft that makes us cheer for Yuri's slights of hand. Yuri is clever enough that we entirely forget that he is selling guns to genocidal dictators. On top of the dialog are subtle stabs at American foreign policy and philosophical hypocrisy with quips like "I sell to leftists, and I sell to rightists. I even sell to pacifists, but they're not the most regular customers." Blood splatters onto blue and white windows to make less-than-subtle patriotic images. When the dictator of Liberia rigs an election and Yuri chastises him, the dictator flashes a newspaper showing the Supreme Court intervention in the U.S. Election of 2000. While not subtle, these tactics help steer the film from being preachy for the first half of the film.
When Yuri hits his requisite moment of moral decline, the film comes to a complete halt. Nicolas Cage enters melodramatic mode and looks like he might fall asleep as he tries to portray Yuri's descent into hell (which according to the movie is Africa). The palace of the brutal, but likable, dictator is replaced by the shacks of AIDS-infected hookers. Instead of laughing at the wake of destruction left by Yuri's trade, we are left to wallow in shock-value atrocities just in case we couldn't tell the film was a satire. It is unfortunate that the film reverted to such hackneyed tactics, as it is otherwise a well crafted criticism.
Thankfully the film picks up itself up with a witty ending and more scathing remarks. It also departs from the standard crime saga with one final stab at US foreign policy and at our expectations in an ending that makes up for most the film's faults. What this film lacks in originality it makes up for in the guts to deal with such touchy subjects with comedy. "Lord of War" is appealing and satisfying enough to be worth the time.
Grizzly Man (2005)
An objective yet compassionate and ultimately brilliant piece from documentarian Werner Herzog
It is no spoiler that in his 13th summer with the grizzly bears, Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard were violently killed by the same grizzly bears Treadwell had befriended and studied since 2000. While "Grizzly Man" is at face value the story of Treadwell's expeditions with the grizzlies of Alaska, Werner Herzog wastes no time in dispelling the notion that he means to tell a story. The viewer learns immediately of the circumstances of Treadwell and Huguenard's deaths so we may focus on the nature of Treadwell himself and why he chose such an arguably insane expedition. The documentary is a compilation of interviews with friends, family, and other associates of Treadwell's along with selected sequences from Treadwell's own footage taken while he lived among the grizzlies.
The documentary begins objectively with the basics of what Treadwell did in Alaska. Treadwell states his intention to live with the grizzlies as an equal and how he would accomplish his task. The truly amazing aspect of this documentary is how objectively it deals with the subject of Treadwell himself. Herzog includes interviews with friends who admired his work and interviews with skeptics who thought his expeditions were either morally wrong or simply lacked common sense. The final segment includes sequences of footage that Treadwell shot. These reveal probably more than Treadwell would have revealed about himself and his feelings about society and the grizzlies. Such possible disrespect toward Treadwell must be forgiven of Herzog (in an artistic sense, at least) since his task is not to exalt Treadwell but to examine him.
The film seeks not to moralize any of Treadwell's decisions or actions. Herzog refrains from contradicting or censoring any of his subjects' assertions or opinions, although he does occasionally mention that he disagrees with Treadwell himself. Herzog remains off camera, though narrating, throughout almost the entire film. His camera also lingers a bit longer on his subjects than is usual in a documentary. Even when they are clearly done speaking, the camera remains rolling, capturing their unconscious gestures that reveal enough to remind the viewer to be objective. The result is that the viewer is constantly aware that he is watching a film and to be aware of subjectivity. Objectivity again comes into question in Herzog's choice of segments from Treadwell's own material. Should the viewer question the partiality of Herzog's choices? Probably not, since Herzog chooses enough segments that run the gamut of Treadwell's nature.
While the interviewees' opinions range from praise to criticism, the consensus is that Treadwell's ultimate, if unconscious goal, was to become a grizzly as much as he possibly could. While Herzog presents the contrasting views of whether Treadwell was indeed helping the bears or harming them and of whether his expedition was scientifically moral or totally unfounded, he avoids philosophical discussions for exploring the objective nature of Treadwell's desire to become a bear. The structure of the film reveals that Treadwell slowly detached himself from society and immersed himself entirely in bear society. The film avoids any footage of Treadwell during the winter months of hibernation, subtly blurring his nature with that of bears. Finally Treadwell died living as a bear. Having purposefully violated numerous park rules in his attempt to live with the bears, the film prevents us from judging the occurrence as anything but an act of nature. Herzog makes no attempt to discover why he was killed; Herzog is satisfied with the answer that Treadwell was killed just as all animals, including bears, are killed. If it was Treadwell's desire to become a grizzly bear, then the film posits that his death was fitting and, while tragic, probably what Treadwell would have wanted.
Mimicking the duality of Treadwell's personality, the film praises and criticizes Treadwell equally. It is amazing and tragic, but Herzog composes his film in such a way that we cannot be anything but satisfied that Treadwell succeeded in his goals. "Grizzly Man" is a detached and objective, yet ultimately compassionate film. To achieve such a combination in a documentary is a rare feat and a credit to Herzog's continuing collection of masterpieces.
Match Point (2005)
"Match Point" is Hitchcock-cum-Dostoyevsky and fantastic new territory for Woody Allen.
"Crime and Punishment" is familiar stomping ground for Woody Allen, but every other element to "Match Point" is foreign. The setting, London, is literally foreign and the melodrama built into a domestic thriller is equally new for Allen. The subject matter of infidelity, highly reminiscent on "Crimes and Misdemeanors," is typical Allen, however, and his new spin on it incredibly satisfying.
The film has been criticized for its setting and Allen's poor representation of Londoners. While the depiction of the locals and the locale is indeed clichéd, Allen has no interest in portraying realism in this film. Hitchcock is notorious for saying, "Reality is something that none of us can stand, at any time," and Allen runs with this idea from Chris Wilton's (Jonathan Rhys Myers) ridiculous Lacoste and Ralph Lauren attire to his wife's (Emily Mortimer) painfully yuppie fanaticism with hideous art. There are no double-decker buses, but everyone rides in black cabs. The viewer should not despair at the dubious placement of the Houses of Parliament across from Wilton's flat; it is all part of Allen's way of playing with our expectations and sense of justice.
The entire Hewett family is just a piece of the scenery. They are as flat as can be (although they are entertaining to watch). They serve to make us identify with and like the enormously unlikable Chris Wilton. The only other developed character is Nola Rice (Scarlett Johansson), whom, significantly, we first see playing table tennis against former tennis pro Wilton. Her white dress hardly indicates innocence as it recalls Lana Turner's dress in "The Postman Always Rings Twice." She is the American blonde femme fatale, but clearly outclassed at the ping-pong table. What are we to expect? Allen is surprisingly deft with his command of a thriller. He avoids cheap ploys standard to infidelity flicks. The suspense does not come from Chloe's (Wilton's wife) growing suspicion. In fact, Allen's script hardly contains any suspicion on the part of the Hewetts. Standard to suspense movies is the waxing and waning of tension through situations where the lovers could get caught. For instance, when Chris and Nola kiss outside of the box at the opera, the viewer expects someone to come out or expects them to have to explain their absence in some way. Instead, the film cuts before any resolution is offered, leaving the tension high. Similarly, after Nola and Chris allow their passions to best them in rain on the countryside, the viewer wonders how they will explain their sopping and muddy clothes to the Hewetts. We can only assume that Hewetts are as fantastically naïve as the film skips any possible confrontation and cuts to another day and scene entirely. The viewer is allowed no reprieve from the tension as Chris continues to commit daring acts of stupidity and infidelity. Due to the lack of other developed characters, we must root for him and like him despite his slimy nature.
The only hope the viewer has for Chris is Allen's initial metaphor of luck. As adept at cheating as Chris may be, he admits that there are moments where luck could take him either way, to salvation or damnation. Playing over his sexual romps is incessant opera music, following his view of life as a great tragedy with no god, only pure chance. The opera music serves as another tool for making the entire story unreal enough into which we may immerse ourselves. In a film as godless and lacking in morals as "Match Point," only the surreal would allow us to selfishly hope for Chris's well-being simply so that our nerves can take a break from his skulking.
It is unfortunate that to praise the best part of the film is to spoil the third act. To do the most justice (a significantly poor word to use for this film), one can only say that the ending is sadistically satisfying. To have an ending as deliciously godless, amoral, and simultaneously satisfying as the culmination of "Match Point"can only be attributed to Woody Allen's skill at moving into new territory with one of best movies of the year.
Munich (2005)
While not without indulgent faults, "Munich" is a well-made thriller and one of Spielberg's best
Spielberg's "Munich" is similar in motive and execution to "A History of Violence." Both films explore the need for and result of vengeful violence. In "Munich," however, this is not Spielberg's primary purpose. "Munich" is first a thriller and second a social commentary. Spielberg first created a top notch thriller and then draped meaning over it. The result is a highly entertaining and well-written dramatization of the 1972 Munich massacre and subsequent retaliation by Israel topped by poorly construed notions of violence.
As the story is about the retaliation against Black September, the film concisely lays out the events leading up to Israel's decision to assassinate the members of Black September. We then follow Avner, possibly the least likely secret agent in all of Hollywood, and his team as they hunt down their targets. I understand Spielberg's need for historical fidelity, but in the interest of making an entertaining film, he should have embellished Avner and his team's talents. They are the worst assassins ever depicted on the screen. The assassinations are well directed, almost Hitchcockian in suspense, but for almost no purpose since the targets have little to no security. After each job the viewer is left wondering, "Why did they make that so difficult?" Despite these minor idiosyncrasies, the film does build suspense quite well, culminating as Avner's team itself is targeted for further retaliation. Eric Bana does well in depicting a father-to-be trying to reconcile his fear and guilt for committing heinous acts.
The kidnapping and murder of the Olympic team is shown repeatedly through flashbacks, with the murders itself shown with extreme gore. As viewers, we are supposed to feel the same need for revenge after the Israel team is murdered. Avner's character is constructed as our surrogate for this vengeance upon Black September, which is possibly why he is depicted as such a family man. Each assassination, however, is shown with the same violence and graphic gore as the murder of the Israeli team itself. This ties the revenge to the original murders, questioning the morality of the acts and serving as visual punishment for the viewer's desire for revenge.
Unfortunately, Spielberg does not use these concepts as well as Cronenberg does in "A History of Violence." Cronenberg uses embarrassment in conjunction with excessive gore, while Spielberg's gore stands alone. And while Spielberg cannot help the time period, "Munich" takes place in 1970s Europe, which is visually different enough to make identification with Avner as a surrogate slightly more difficult. Avner's eventual punishment is another of Spielberg's hackneyed ploys; he is slowly driven mad with fear and he remains unhinged even when he returns to his wife and child. Finally, we are left with a shot of the Twin Towers. This is clearly meant to associate Israel's actions with our own vengeance in the wake of 9/11. The association is too late in the film, however. It seems as if it were thrown in as an afterthought to drive his point home.
In his oeuvre, Spielberg instills a sense of optimism in his films, consistently almost to a fault. It, of course, works in some films, such as "Schindler's List," but is awkward in others, like "War of the Worlds." In "Munich," a film that could do without optimism, he almost overcomes this need before Avner's apparent sexual catharsis spliced with the final moments of the Israeli team's murder. After this almost perverse scene, Avner seems calm and without his paranoia. Is this really a catharsis and is Avner forgiven for his crimes? Even with this scene and with its misconceived moralization of revenge, "Munich" remains as a taut, well-made historical thriller ranking among Spielberg's best.
What the #$*! Do We (K)now!? (2004)
Only good if regarded as inadvertent satire on New Age spiritualism
There is a difficulty when reviewing a documentary like "What the Bleep Do We Know?" Should it be judged factually or cinematically? This same problem arises with documentaries like "Fahrenheit 9/11." However, what separates this from Michael Moore's controversies is that this film fails both factually and cinematically. This, of course, makes the job of reviewing much easier.
The documentary is posed as an exploration of reality and perception on the bases of quantum mechanics and biology. To carry the connection, the film uses a dramatization of a woman trying to find meaning in her tumultuous life. The story is reminiscent of a 1980s educational health video. The characters are blatant stereotypes of people in need of emotional help falling into predictable predicaments. Amanda, the main character, is plagued by a previous marriage and takes allegedly unnecessary anxiety medication. There is the omniscient child who has an oddly penetrating understanding of the universe, much like the ubiquitous all-knowing children of modern horror movies. On top of this are the unnamed "scientists" whose credentials are not listed. While I suppose this is not a requisite for all documentaries, it does seem suspect in a film such as this when the ludicrous assertions are thrown out without even a "Ph.D" tagged onto the names. This brings us to the quality of those assertions.
"What the Bleep?" presents a number of facts in the name of quantum mechanics. It is indeed true that quantum mechanics measures probabilities and possibilities, not actualities. It is also true that the observer is inherently connected to the observed. The leap of faith comes when the film asserts that we, as observers, can therefore choose from a number of possibilities because we are connected to the world we observe. Nowhere in the accepted realm of quantum physics is this considered true. In the realm of biology, it is true that our physiology reacts to our emotional state. To connect this to the previous quantum mechanical notion of reality control by stating that nutrition is overrated and we can simply think optimistically about not being fat in order to attain a healthy lifestyle is a far cry from an accepted scientific theory. The crowning achievement is when the film claims that its science can explain the nature of God and exactly what God defines as a sin.
The film would do better if it did not lie about the nature of its claims. The film is made by students of the Ramtha School of Enlightenment. The interviewed "experts" are from various theological and spiritual schools of thought. There would be nothing wrong with this if the film had simply stated it instead of trying to pass itself off as popular science. Thrown into the mix with the physics "experts" is J.Z. Knight, the self-proclaimed channel for the ethereal and spiritual being known as Ramtha. Perhaps we are supposed to catch on that the experts are all frauds when the unnamed chiropractor Joseph Dispenza makes up the word "mediocrisy."
Had the film simply been marketed as a spiritual film guiding people toward self-improvement, it would not be so infuriating. Instead, as viewers are fooled into thinking the subject matter is actual science, "What the Bleep?" can only be regarded as an accidental satire on itself and New Age spiritualists.
King Kong (2005)
Please return your Oscar, Mr. Jackson
There are a number of reasons this film falls flat on its face. As many people have mentioned, it's a 3 hour remake of a 100 minute movie. The camp of the original is justified in that it was made in 1933. Peter Jackson failed to realize that the excitement derived from a film is not simply in how nice it looks, but also in how well the idea resonates in the time it's made. In 1933, the idea of a giant gorilla from a mysterious island was exciting. Nowadays, I can't say the idea is too thrilling.
I can't quite tell if the cheesy acting and directing were done on purpose. Accidental or not, both made the film unbearable. You would think that in three hours Jackson would be able to develop at least one character. Not so. Adrien Brody is the only one who manages to add any depth to his character. Unfortunately, his Driscoll character doesn't appear in all of the good money-making action sequences, so we really don't get to see much of him. Oscar-nominated actress Naomi Watts does an utterly dull job with all 4 of her lines. By the end of the movie, you get quite annoyed with her apparent Stockholm Syndrome since Jackson fails to give us any idea of why she would continue to chase this gorilla whose emotional range is far greater than hers. Finally, we have the ridiculous side characters. Jimmy is the kleptomaniacal kid who is allegedly creepy because he won't tell anyone where he's from (his story was subsequently dropped when the producers told Jackson he couldn't make this into a 9-hour trilogy). Hayes is Jimmy's protective father figure, who is analogous to the World's Smartest Garbage Man in Dilbert. While being the first mate to a shifty captain who poaches wild animals, he also dabbles in poetry and has a weakness for Joseph Conrad. Hayes must, of course, die because he is a minor black character and because Jackson ran out of unimportant characters to kill off.
No doubt Jackson didn't want to be upstaged by his actors' camp, so his direction recalls that of Sci-Fi Channel original movies. Apparently in order to instill us with fear, he uses high-exposure blur techniques seen primarily on America's Most Wanted when they reenact rape scenes. This is important because that's how the viewer feels as he watches this film. Jackson also fails to give his expensive special effects any sort of grandeur so he compensates by lingering on his actors' shocked faces for longer than necessary. Once you see the computer graphic that was so shocking, you realize that Jack Black's agape mouth indeed was more exciting. When Spielberg made "Jurassic Park" with computerized dinosaurs, I was impressed enough to ignore the otherwise lame characteristics of the film. Jackson has yet to realize that CGI is not a new thing and cannot be used as a crutch. The brontosaurus stampede was one of the worst uses of CGI that I have ever seen.
By the end of the film, I was left yearning for the ape to just fall already so I could leave. All I've learned is that I'd take a good story with "Thunderbirds"-quality special effects over Jackson's illegitimate-Oscar-winning CGI-fests.
The New World (2005)
Malick's film presents a great challenge with a greater reward
As an avid Malick fan, I wholeheartedly recommend all of Malick's films, including his newest, "The New World." I would never tell the average moviegoer that he would enjoy the film, but I hope he would at least see it.
"The New World" begins as an epic poem, with an invocation of the muse. We are immediately immersed in Malick's vision of paradise in unadulterated Virginia. The land and its people are captured beautifully by Emmanuel Lubezki's cinematography. Lubezki captures the ripples of the water with the sun's rays shining through the trees while James Horner's ethereal score completes the image of the promised land soon to be invaded by the English settlers. But Malick's film would never simplify the colonization of Virginia as an invasion by man. "The New World" explores man's desire for paradise and his inability to create it or obtain it.
To say that the story in the film is slow is a mighty understatement. But in its defense, it never feigns to be a plot-driven film. It is entirely imagery-driven. While the love story between Pocahontas stalls at points and while there are long stretches of little to no dialog, each frame remains for a specific purpose. Not a moment of the 150 minute runtime is wasted. The story itself takes a back seat to the images presented and they complete the love story. Farrell and newcomer Kilcher convey the love between their characters as immaculate and beautiful. Malick instills what could be a dubious relationship with the notion that this love is not between a man and a woman, but between humanity and the peace which it desires most.
The peaceful cinematography and the love story both abruptly end when the socially accepted version of the Smith-Pocahontas fable halts and her real story continues. There is a subtle shift in the way this portion of the film is shot. There is no more beauty to the land, the film, or to Pocahontas, for that matter. The film seems as awkward as Pocahontas does in her English dress. The colonists have stayed in Jamestown, attempting to live in paradise without adhering to its terms. Soon, Pocahontas marries Rolfe and Rolfe takes her to England. Malick continues to film without his usual style as he shows England without the warm tones of Virginia. But again, Malick's film would never simplify Virginia and England with a good-bad dichotomy.
England is man's attempt to create its own paradise. Malick shoots London and the surrounding countryside's beauty with a style different from that which he shoots Virginia. England is entirely geometrical. The trees are groomed into perfect cones and the rectangular buildings tower in their own unnatural beauty. Shown in stark comparison is the lone Powhatan among the trimmed grass and gardens who has come with Pocahontas to experience man's attempt at paradise for himself.
We are finally given reprieve from the awkward cinematography when Pocahontas achieves her happiness with Rolfe. The love story ends tragically yet happily and Malick's camera follows her happiness with one final vision of peace and beauty. The closing shots are stunning beyond words and would leave even the most skeptical of film-goers absolutely breathless.