CRITERION COLL: NEW WORLD

I saw this film at the cinema when it was originally released, but it's taken me awhile to buy and play the DVD. It's strange how over the years since then my mind has come back to this film, breaking through momentarily from my subconscious. And when I read a recent article in `The Guardian' newspaper by John Patterson that praised it as the best film of the decade, I knew I had to purchase it and relive it. (Note, this is the 130-minute version; the Blue ray disc lasts 170 minutes.) The opening is extremely evocative with a few shiploads of colonists slowly moving upriver to found the colony of Jamestown in the year 1607. Their journey is made to the sound of Wagner's opening to `Rhinegold'. In fact, there is a very effective use of music made throughout this film. And as the colonists fan out into the undergrowth after their landing, I could not help think of similar scenes in Malick's previous movie, `The Thin Red Line'. Indeed, the film adopts the same expressing of thoughts that was so much a feature of that moving motion picture. The film opens in 1607, but closes in the year 1616. Pocahontas has become Rebecca, a curiosity at the English court of King James I. Ultimately this is a love story between the American Indian Pocahontas and her two successive `husbands', Captain Smith (played by Colin Farrell) and then John Rolfe (Christian Bale). But the film is also a meditation on the founding of America. When one of the colonists within minutes finds some oysters, the captain declares, "We're going to live like kings!" How right - and how wrong - he was! This is no romanticised picture of the founding of Virginia. The extras on this disc merely confirm what can be deduced from the film itself, namely that every effort has been made to ensure the authenticity of the film's narrative and style. It was filmed barely miles form the site of the original colony with the ships of the colony's museum, and all in natural light. The pace is steady, sometimes slow, but never without interest. There are long periods with no dialogue except the expression of the mind's thoughts and feelings. Sometimes there is too much mumbling and there are also some visual inconsistencies, for example in the numbers of men and boys. The editing is often very jumpy, and I notice there are four editors credited, so it sometimes feels that you are watching four films in one. But because the soundtrack is continuous, there is a solidity to the audio-visual experience. The extras include an hour-long `making of ...' in which it seems everyone but the notoriously reclusive director has something interesting to say. In his `Guardian' article, James Patterson declared that "when all the middlebrow Oscar-dross of our time has eroded away ... `The New World' will stand tall, isolated and magnificent, like Kubrick's black monolith." I'm not sure I would go that far, but it certainly is a masterpiece; once seen, it will never be forgotten.

Was it made by any other director, I would rate it 5 stars, for the visionary and incredible force of his visual and poetic touch. Being a Malick film, it is "Only" 4 stars, just because here Malick starts to become a little self-derivative, but still staying at such sublime heights that you can't help being amazed by his style. It is the second film he made after 20 years of silence, following, few years later, his magnificent return on the big screen with The Thin Red Line. The New World is a sort of sequel or prequel of that, although set in another story and time. It is made of the same stuff as the previous film and somehow even more extreme than that: a constant Voice over of the two main characters, that alternate and interweave with one another and with the unfolding of the story, mixing with the magnificent music and ambient sounds of the scenes, and creating, along with the wonderful photography that captures intimate moments as well as spectacular landscape and magic nature, a flow of consciousness suspended between beauty of purity and the sudden and shocking realism of human violence. The New World is the story of a slow, inevitable path to destruction cause by the irruption of civilization. But it is not so simple, because Colin Farrell and Colin Firth, the threat and the solution of the story, represent the two faces of western world, two sides of the same domination, one brought by violence, the other by culture. The latter, representing the old world, has to bitterly face with the former, trying to get wrong things right, but once the conquest has started, there is no way to stop it. And so Pochaontas get stuck in the middle, only left with the choice between one of the two cages. In a sense The New World is also a gigantic metaphor of human and sentimental relationships, with the woman torn between two ideal kind of men: the brutal and physical one and the more educated and rational one. So you can enjoy it on 2 different layers and decide if you want to approach it in an emotional way or a rational one. And this is one of the main values of this maybe unresolved but extremely fascinating and unique film, whose incredible cinematographic aspects are so perfectly exposed by the fantastic blu ray transfer

This is not an entirely accurate depiction of the history of Pocahontas and the preceding events. Its not trying to be. Its an experience, a beautiful piece of art that takes heavy inspiration from the history, and there is nothing wrong with that. I can still enjoy a more romanticized version of events, even if its not entirely accurate to the more unforgiving and harsh truth of what took place. As someone who loved the original Disney princess film i always wished for a live action adaption, and this is the closest thing to that. The extended cut is one of the most profoundly beautiful pieces of cinema i have ever witnessed. Its tragic, beautiful, emotional, and heartbreaking. The actress is absolutely breathtaking and does a phenomenal job at making the audience fall head over heels in love with her. The film delivers on a romanticized, yet tragic story of Pocahontas, the beauty and loss of our connection with nature, and creates a magnificent and emotional journey. I must recommend the extended cut of the film though. There are 3 versions here, but the extended cut is a thing of beauty. The theatrical cut loses 35 minutes of much needed footage, and in doing so loses much of the heart and soul of the film. Had i initially seen the theatrical cut first i honestly wouldnt have cared for the movie. The extended cut however is one of the best experiences i have ever had with a film. Just a wonderful experience, one that all people should see. If the story of Pocahontas intrigues you at all, watch this film, you wont be disappointed.

Arrivato in 2gg, è la vesione estesa da ben 172'. Qualità video (VC-1) molto alta, così come l'audio ITA 5.12 DD thue HD. Molti gli extra ma tutti in SD. Il film è la storia di Pocahontas, che tutti conosciamo. Gli unici due aspetti "negativi" che ho notato sono: il ritmo un po' troppo lento in alcune sequenze e soprattutto i dialoghi in lingua originale ENG che spesso troviamo inframmezzati a dialoghi in audio ITA nel senso non di scene ma una frase in EGN e magari la frase subito dopo in ITA. Inoltre non tutti i dialoghi sono con i sottotitoli e questo dà ancora più fastidio. A parte questo aspetto (che nella versione normale non ci sono ma purtroppo in BD esiste solo questa), il film è davvero bello, ricorda in molte sequenze Balla coi lupi, ottima la musica e il paesaggio. In ogni caso se piace il genere, l'acquisto è obbligato. Voto FILM: 4/5 Voto AUDIO: 5/5 Voto VIDEO: 5/5

内容は良くも悪くもテレンス・マリック。 あまりにも詩的過ぎて、おそらく大半の人が途中でダレて飽きるでしょう(苦笑) 評価はあくまでもソフトとしてです。 画質・音質は言うまでもなく最高ですが、このソフトにはなんと 劇場公開版135分 ファースト・カット版150分 Extended Cut 172分の３バージョン収録！勿論特典映像満載の３枚組 俺が買った出品者からは3,493円で買えたのですが、プレミア化したのか価格が高騰してますね(;^_^A 作品そのものとしては特別好きではないですが、俺は最初からコレクションとして割り切って購入しました。 日本ではまず手に入らないだろうから。 因みに俺はまだExtended Cut 172分のバージョンしか観ていません(^^;)

Coincidiendo con la reseña anterior quiero añadir que esta historia épica, pero de un tipo diferente al que tal vez muchos están acostumbrados, es un verdadero espectáculo. Es lenta y majestuosa con una fotografía estupenda y un audio cuidado y preciosista. El plato fuerte de los extras es el excelente documental "Making The New World" en HD con 81:35 de duración que se puede ver en segmentos o todo completo. Un gran making of en que hablan casi todos los implicados y se calla un poco Terence Malick, el esquivo director. Trailers de propina. Añadir que sólo cuenta con audio Dolby TrueHD 5.1 y subs en inglés, aunque mucho mucho dialogo no hay. Ya que New Line no se digna editarla en mejores condiciones yo diría que no existe mejor edición hoy día.

Der Film "The New World" könnte am Anfang fast ein gleitender Übergang von dem einige Jahre älteren "Thin red line/Der schmale Grat" sein. Elegisch gleitend erzählen Bilder und Gedanken vom Eintritt in eine unbekannte Gegend, die bei Thin Red Line in Vietnam spielte. Der Hauptakteur würde gerne diese neuen Erfahrungen: Licht ,Gerüche, Pflanzen, Geräusche, Menschen als Bereicherung aufnehmen. Unter den Umständen, in denen er in diese ihm neue Welt eintritt, muss es allerdings auf Dauer misslingen. Auszubrechen aus dem treibenden Strom der Ereignisse gelingt in beiden Filmen nicht. Das Paradies / Unabhängigkeit von Hierarchien, so nahe greifbar es scheint, zerbricht wie ein Spiegelbild im Wasser. Lost World stattdessen als Ergebnis, wie ein Kritiker vor mir im Titel irrte. Der Filmtitel "Neue" Welt sorgte auch für Verstörung bei den mitwirkenden Nachkommen der Eingeborenen, wie man dem Making Of entnehmen kann. Als hätte Malick oder die Vermarktung es auf Missverständnisse abgesehen ist das Werbeposter angelehnt an die aus den 70ern bekannten Schlachtenfilme genannt Western. Es ist vielleicht der ehrenwerte Versuch das auf solche Geschichten eingeschworene Publikum eines anderen zu belehren mit dem Trick: biste drin wirst schon sehen. Ich kann mutmassen dass dieses Unterfangen teilweise gelungen ist, andererseits auch nicht. Jedenfalls wird die verkaufte DVD von denjenigen wie sauer Bier angeboten, die abgestossen reagieren. Zurück zum Inhalt. Wie noch bei keinem anderen mir bekannten Autor ist auch der Soundtrack eine Form für sich. Da die szenische Entwicklung des Empfindens einer anderen Natur und Kultur Zeit zur Darstellung benötigt, die nicht durch wortreiche Beschreibungen zugedrückt wird, bleibt Raum für den Ton. Das Rauschen der Gräser, Tröpfeln des Wassers, Hauch des Windes, Knistern des Bodens schafft die Ebene, die manche in den 90ern von Duftdüsen im Kino erhofften; Allerdings ohne dass dem Zuschauer ein Gefühl von Technik im Hinterkopf bleibt. Malick und Team haben in vielem auf moderne Technik verzichtet. Lichtsetzung, Bauten, Aussaat von Pflanzen, Stunts sind eher handwerkliche Fertigkeiten als technische Finessen um den Zeitplan eines Drehs voranzutreiben. Dieser Verzicht wirkt sich auf die scheinbare Echtheit positiv aus. Etwas negativ zu bewerten ist das Fehlen von Alltagsszenen bis auf solche die unter Dramatik einzuordnen sind (wie der Brunnenbau). Pocahontas muss nie im Dorf ihrer Familie bei der Nahrungsbeschaffung helfen, die nativen Bewohner haben immer eine Waffe in der Hand wenn sie durch die Hütten laufen. Aber Malick hat ohne festes Drehbuch gearbeitet und im Making Of ahnt man, dass einige solcher gefilmten Szenen der Schere zum Opfer gefallen sind. Ohne die Notwendigkeit der Vermarktung wäre es wohl eher ein 3 Stunden Film geworden. Wer ihn sich anschaut tut gut daran sich für danach nichts vorzunehmen, sondern den Geist ausrollen zu lassen. Viel Vergnügen bei diesem Meisterwerk.