In the hands of Terrence Malick, the journal of John Smith becomes a nuanced and troubling encounter between the European world and Native Americana. The New World interlaces simple scenes of the Smith (Colin Ferrell), Pocahontas (Q’Orianka Kilcher), and John Rolfe (Christian Bale) legend with voiceovers representing actual passages from Smith’s and Rolfe’s writings. The technique reminds me of the voiceovers in Malick’s The Thin Red Line, and the effect is stunning, for just like in The Thin Red Line, the voiceover in the Smith/Pocahontas story narrows the scope of audience understanding to the limited perspective of unaware characters even as the cinematographically expansive setting cries out for an expanse of human understanding.
In the case of Smith, his misinterpretation of the ritual Werowance, his driving wanderlust, and his near-cavalier attitude toward indigenous peoples are underscored by the contrast between the action of the scenes and some well chosen statements from Smith’s actual journal. As Ferrell’s journal voiceover details Smith’s “love” of Pocahontas, we see scenes of the native woman losing the respect of her father, Chief Powhatan. As the Smith voice justifies his abandonment of Pocahontas in favor of further adventures in the new world, we see scenes of Pocahontas losing respect for herself. Her despair becomes most palpable when she is told that Smith has died, even as the Smith voiceover reveals this to be a lie, a strategy he justifies as a kindness to his abandoned lover.
The story is part romance―the faithful character Rolfe serving as contrast to the self-involved Smith and gentling Pocahontas back to her well-rooted self―and partly romanticizes the wonders of the new world, including its pure, unsullied lands and its indigenous peoples. At the same time, Malick never lets the film fall into the excesses of romanticization. Pocahontas has her stubborn moments. Smith tender and generous moments. And Rolfe, though not always believable as the patient “saint” he is, is never presented as falling in love with the Idea of the Native. He is shown to be a plain and practical man who wants a sincere, intelligent woman as his helpmeet.
I have to say I came to the film with low expectations, given the popular cultural romanticization and misconstruction of the historical Pocahontas. But I should have known better. Terrence Malick has the ability to tangle his audience up in a tale of complex human motives and relationships in a setting that takes one’s breath away. And he has practiced his art of intricacy as well on this film as on The Thin Red Line and that memorable early film, Days of Heaven. It would seem for Malick, those settings that whisper most insistently for our notice of nature’s unspoiled sublimity also lend themselves best to a cinema of flawed human relations. The New World is finally, for me, the story of a beautiful, blemished human landscape.
