The New World

An absolutely stunning romance, wrapped up in VERY pretty paper. Malick delivers a glorious film that portrays 'love' in such a simple, and seemingly effortless way. So much is said here with touches, gazes, and without the clutter of words. Splendid.

The cinematography is beautiful, but that fails to change the fact that by my watch it was at least SEVENTEEN HOURS LONG

Visually, it's absolutely stunning and really managed to draw me into the setting. It was so easy to believe I was actually seeing images transported straight from the early 17th century. Too bad the voiceover rarely adds anything and the actual story isn't really that engrossing. But ye gods, it's so gorgeous it hurts.

There's some ineffable genius to Malick's handheld camera-work. I can't articulate it, but it feels magical and probing in a way no other director - except Kubrick during Hal's shutdown - has matched. The editing, too, is worth mentioning; totally unpredictable and emotional.

There can only ever be very imperfect imaginings (that is, fictions) of that encounter between worlds, and between the worlds of individuals, that took place four hundred years ago at Jamestown, but we are unlikely ever to improve upon the beautiful, profound vision provided to us by Terrence Malick. It is also, perhaps, deceptively and fascinatingly self-conscious and ironic, if not indeed self-deconstructing. The “extended cut” is quite a bit better than the 135-minute cinema-release version.