Most Anticipated Films of 2010

2009 is over. The 00s are over. It’s time for a new decade and an exciting new year of movies. Some years, I’ve had to scrounge around to find enough movies to fill out this list, but this year I’ve got an overflow. Of course, three of them are the same films that topped last year’s list, but hopefully they’ll all make it out this year, and hopefully this will be a great bunch of films. First off, some films I’m looking forward to that didn’t make the list include Alice in Wonderland, Toy Story 3, Scott Pilgrim, Cemetery Junction and Kick-Ass. Here’s my ten most anticipated…

10. Tron Legacy - If I had to honestly guess, I’d say this will be a terrible film. The first Tron is pretty bad, though it does have some charms, and I think what I’m looking for from this film is not what it’s going to deliver. So why is it on here? It’s primarily because it’s being scored by Daft Punk and in my mind, I see a 90 minute avant garde burst of light and strange visuals, accompanied by a killer new Daft Punk score. The teaser reel shown at Comicon is pretty great, but I just fear the actual dialogue and narrative will kill the experience. So, let’s hope there’s not too much of that, and we can focus on the abstract Daft Punk experience. Bangalter’s score for Irreversible was the best score of the decade, let’s hope he matches it here.



9. Your Highness - I love the old David Gordon Green, “the next Terence Malick,” but he’s chosen now to become the next Ivan Reitman. Still, as long as he makes films as entertaining as Pineapple Express, I’m down. I’d love to see him do a non-studio project next, but the cast here is fantastic, with James Franco, Danny McBride and perhaps too much hipster cuteness to believe with both Natalie Portman and Zooey Deschanel in the same film. The premise is great, and hopefully it’ll be a really fun epic comedy. And, the thought of Natalie Portman in the role of a warrior princess brings to mind her fantastic work in The Professional, so I’m eager for that.



8. The Green Hornet - I remember the old 60s series, which was most notable for its great theme song. The film offers a lot more, with Gondry and Rogen sure to bring us an unconventional action film. The issue for me is that I’ve seen diminishing returns from Gondry’s work since Eternal Sunshine, his visual tricks have gotten a bit stale, and Be Kind, Rewind just didn’t work that well. Rogen has a similar problem, where his schtick has been so prominent, it doesn’t have the fresh quality it did in Knocked Up. But, Rogen’s never done a bad film, and maybe matching Gondry’s visual style to a blockbuster structure will make for something really special. The presence of Christoph Waltz is a great bonus, coming off an instantly legendary turn in Inglorious Basterds.



7. The Runaways - I’m pretty confident the two preceding films will at least be entertaining, this one’s more of a question mark. I like the premise, and musician biopics can be a great frame through which to explore social and cultural change. Of course, only filmmaker has used them in that way, the brilliant Todd Haynes. But, with director Floria Sigismondi at the helm, I’m hoping this will be something more than your typical rise and fall narrative. She has an amazing eye, and I’m eager to see what she does with a more long form work. The trailer looks pretty exciting, but I fear that she’s going to be constrained by a weak narrative and that she doesn’t have the clout to do Haynes style avant garde visual indulgence. But, it looks like a fun film and will hopefully deliver.



6. Kaboom - Gregg Araki followed up his most consistently great film to date, Mysterious Skin with a goofy throwaway, Smiley Face, that was unjustly neglected by its distributor. But, he’s back in his classic thematic wheelhouse with this tale of teenagers in a wacky universe of craziness. The initial stills look great, and I love Araki at his most personal and experimental, so I’m eager to see how he brings the style of The Doom Generation and Nowhere into a new era. His Twin Peaks comparisons only make me more intrigued.



5. The Black Swan - Speaking of films that have too much hipster cuteness, here’s Natalie Portman and Winona Ryder in the same film. And on top of that Vincent Cassel. But, the real attraction is Darren Aronofsky who’s following up his “comeback” The Wrestler with a thriller that sounds inspired by Argento’s Suspiria. I think Aronofsky’s never made a film that wasn’t great, and I’m eager to see him continue to branch out. I’d like to see a bit more stylistic experimentation here than in The Wrestler, but I’m sure whatever he does will make the film work. For all the attention that his technique gets, he always does a great job immersing you in character subjectivity, and that seems like a perfect technique for a film about identities in crisis.



4. Somewhere - Sofia Coppola is another director who’s never made a film that wasn’t great. Her new one sounds like a retread of some Lost in Translation themes, but I’m confident in her taste, and am sure that even if it is narratively similar, there will be a lot of wonderful images and moments to enjoy. I loved Marie Antoinette, and think she’s been consistent in really using film as a medium in a way that so few other filmmakers can. An assist from her partner Thomas Mars on music will only make it even sweeter.



3. Rebuild of Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance - This film was released in Japan in June, but thanks to the horrific distribution of foreign films, it’s still not made it over here in either a legal format or a subbed DVD release. But, it’s slated to drop on DVD in the spring, and I’m eagerly awaiting checking out this new film which diverges from the timeline of the original series to offer something new. Anno is one of the best filmmakers out there, and I’m sure he has good reason to revisit his masterpiece and bring it into a new, modern light. This film also introduces my favorite character from the series, Asuka. And, if we’re lucky, maybe we’ll see 3.0 this year as well.



2. The Tree of Life - It was a big disappointment when this one didn’t make it out this holiday season, but hopefully we’ll see it in the late summer as rumored. Malick is a master filmmaker, telling stories through film in a way that no one else even tries to, and this sounds like his most ambitious, cosmic project yet. I’m also really excited for the rumored Imax companion project. It’s going to be very annoying if this film turns up on the most anticipated of 2011 list.



1. Enter the Void - Another film that’s been released abroad, but hasn’t been seen here yet. The film got a mixed reception, but every critical review only made me want to see the film more. It sounds like a groundbreaking, sensory experience that redefines what cinema is capable of. Irreversible was the most innovative use of filmmaking in countless years, and I can’t wait to see Noe push it further with this film. I’m hoping to go to Europe in the spring, and if the film hasn’t made it here by then, there might have to be a special trip to France to check this one out.

2009 Film Preview

2008 hasn’t been the best year for film, but it’s still got a few days to impress me with something great. But, looking ahead to 2009, we’ve got some potentially fantastic films on the horizon.

11. The Box - I’m one of the few defenders out there for Richard Kelly’s madly ambitious previous film, Southland Tales. It’s an undeniable disaster, a beautiful one in a lot of ways, but it’s not the kind of film that’s going to make it easy to find funding for your next one. So, he’s scaling it down for a film that’s described as a feature length Twilight Zone episode. I’m hoping that this film doesn’t sacrifice the idiosyncratic voice of his previous films in attempting to atone for the wackiness of Southland Tales. The premise has potential, and the Arcade Fire scoring the film is a great sign. We’ll see how it goes.

10. Thirst - The new Chanwook Park film has been getting some crazy buzz over in Korea, notable largely for the apparently extreme nudity required for the lead actress. I enjoyed Park’s recent “I’m a Cyborg,” but he hasn’t come close to the heights of the Vengeance Trilogy in either of his two recent projects. Is he getting back in the game here? Oldboy is one of the most ecstatic pop films of the decade, and if he could recapture some of that energy, we could have another classic on our hands. And, vampires are hotter than ever, so he should at least have an audience for the film.

9. Cleo - I don’t know if this one will actually make it out in 2009, but if it does, I’ll be right there to see it. Soderbergh is one of the toughest filmmakers to love because his films have very little throughline. He jumps from genre to genre, and just keeps making new and different stuff. I really like some of his films, and the notion of him making a musical based on Cleopatra’s life came out of left field. But, I really like musicals, particularly wackier ones, and this one sounds pretty out there. I’m sure it will divide audiences, but I’m excited to see what Soderbergh comes up with.

8. Public Enemies - Much like The Box, Public Enemies will have the onus of having to atone for a previous “failure,” in this case, Michael Mann’s masterful Miami Vice. Vice got a pretty poor reception when it came out, but thankfully got some year end love, and I think history will see it as a minor masterpiece. I don’t think a better film has been released since Vice came out, and I also think that the film represented a huge step for Mann, moving away from a narrative based cinema towards a more impressionist emotional film construction. Will Public Enemies follow? It’s hard to say right now since no footage has leaked. Certainly the subject matter doesn’t seem like something that demanded another film telling, but Vice seemed utterly redundant and turned out to be so real and emotionally vital. The cast on this one is fantastic, and I’m confident Mann will make the movie work.

7. Avatar - James Cameron’s been out of the narrative filmmaking game for a long time, but Avatar sounds like a worthy return. He’s created some of the most enjoyable and filmically satisfying popular cinema of all time. Both Aliens and Terminator 2 are pretty much flawless blockbuster films, managing to combine real emotion and interesting themes with all the action. Avatar is wrapped up in the 3-D element, but I just hope that he keeps the story and emotion present. He’s been away from filmmaking for too long, hopefully he’ll come back strong.

6. Where the Wild Things Are - Spike Jonze’s previous two films were both fantastic, evidencing an emotional depth that wasn’t present in his music videos. I wasn’t thrilled hearing that he was adapting Wild Things for his next film, but reading that lengthy interview with him at Aint-it-Cool, and seeing the initial photos, I’m much more excited. The images look so soulful and emotionally resonant, if the film can match that, it’s going to be quite an experience. And hopefully it won’t take Spike seven years to get his next film done.

5. Watchmen - I have really mixed feelings on this film. On the one hand, it is really cool to see the slavish attention given to realizing Alan Moore’s world on screen, and I’m sure there’s going to be myriad cool moments in the film. But, at the same time, the book is so perfect, and so intrinsically tied to the comic book medium, it’s hard to see what the film adaptation could add. Even if it’s like the Sin City movie and functions as a perfect recreation of the book, what purpose does it serve? Perhaps its purpose is just to entertain us, no more, no less. And, I’m sure I’ll get plenty of entertainment from the film. But, as you enjoy it, just remember, the snake god Glycon frowns on you. I wish everyone who saw Watchmen would check out Promethea, or the documentary “The Mindscape of Alan Moore” to get a better idea of what Alan Moore is really interested in.

4. Inglorious Basterds - I’ve loved every film Tarantino has made so far, and this one sounds like a hugely ambitious, really fun take on the war film. The script reviews make it sound great, and the cast is fantastic, particularly the presence of Maggie Cheung, back on the screen after a lengthy absence. I loved Kill Bill, and really enjoyed Death Proof, but I do hope this film captures some of the narrow emotional focus of Jackie Brown. All of Tarantino’s films have more emotional investment than most people give him credit for, Kill Bill is a lot more than just b-movie homages, the violence is also about revealing Beatrix to us. But, nothing in his oeuvre can match the simple emotional pleasure of watching Pam Grier and Robert Forster circling around each other. How wil Basterds wind up? I guess we’ll find out soon.

3. Rebuild of Evangelion 2.0: You Can(Not) Advance - The first Rebuild of Eva was a great movie, a variation on the series that clarified and focused the narrative into a more cohesive finished product. Rewatching the film, I saw a lot of interesting stuff, but my first reaction was slight disappointment, that the film stuck so closely to the original series. Judging from the info and trailer for 2.0, there’s going to be some big changes here, and I’m eager to see how Anno and co. evolve the narrative and make it work in a new form. I’m also curious to see if the idea of the new films as a kind of sequel/cyclical narrative with the original series is developed further. Plus, we’ll get the entrance of my favorite character from the series, Asuka. Will Anno take things to that tripped out place End of Eva dwelled in? The first Rebuild gives us an idea of what the project will be, but this is the one that blazes a whole new trail. I just wish I could see the film in a theater, not on a bootleg download.

2. The Tree of Life - A new Terence Malick film only four years after his last? That’s unprecedented. The actual story of Tree of Life remains kind of unclear. It’s either about three men in the 1950s, or about a minotaur at the dawn of time. Hopefully, it’s both. Either way, Malick is such a singular voice, I’m sure he’ll manage to make any subject matter into something magical and beautiful. The New World is one of the best films of the decade, and he makes films in a different language than virtually everyone else out there. He understands film as a medium, and the unique things that film can do more than any other director, he constructs moments of astounding beauty and emotion that linger long after the film is over. People may have had trouble with The New World, but history will vindicate it as a masterpiece. Hopefully this new one will match it.

1. Enter the Void - I’ve been waiting for this film for four years, ever since I first saw Irreversible. Irreversible is one of the most intense cinematic experiences you’ll ever have. The subject matter may have gotten the attention, but for me, it was the amazing craft that really made the film. The one take shots are unprecedented, and the film’s use of subtle CG is a perfect example of the new possibilities of effects. Enter the Void was described as an entire film in the style of the last 20 minutes of 2001, a feature length acid trip, and if there’s any filmmaker who can make you physically experience things with a film, it’s Noe. This will not be watching an acid trip, it will be tripping on acid. It’s a hugely ambitious movie, and I’m confident Noe will pull it off.

Joss Whedon's Dollhouse

Great news came out of nowhere today with the news that Joss Whedon’s going to be doing a new show, Dollhouse with Eliza Dushku. I’d hoped that he’d go back to TV at some point, but wasn’t expecting it to happen so soon, so this was an out of nowhere great surprise.

As for the show itself, it’s definitely got potential. It sounds at first like it’ll be a bit standalone heavy, but the beauty of a Joss show is the evolution of it. Watching the first season of Angel, I wasn’t thrilled with things, but as it went along, it really picked up. My big fear is that the show will get screwed like countless other Fox shows and not get a chance to develop. It would be pretty tough to take a cancellation after seven episodes, or a summer burnoff for the series. At this point, Joss has a pretty big fanbase, hopefully it will be enough to get the series up and running. If nothing else, there’ll be a lot of chatter about it online.

Joss seems to have acknowledged that he pretty much failed to make a go of it in the movies. There’s a different sort of storytelling in film, and I don’t think his talents are particularly suited to it. While he clearly can do really powerful, visual storytelling, as in Restless of OMWF, I don’t think that’s his default mode. For Serenity, he went with a fairly straightforward visual style and straightforward story. It’s a good movie, but it’s not much better than any given episode of the Firefly series. From that point of view, why should we want two hours of Joss every couple of years when we could twenty hours every year?

Ultimately, TV in its current incarnation is just a much better medium for storytelling than movies. When done properly, which admittedly it isn’t most of the time, it can allow for a vast canvas of stories that don’t require the three act structure and obvious character arcs of most Hollywood movies. In The Wire, you have no idea who’s going to die or be successful, there’s just so many people in there, anyone is expendable.

For me, movies today should move more towards Wong Kar-Wai or Malick style storytelling, the sort of atmospheric style immersions that aren’t possible on a TV schedule. That’s a reason I’d consider The New World and Miami Vice the best films of recent years, they weren’t so much about story as about going to a place and lingering there. If The Wire was a movie, I’d enjoy it, but not in the same way as the series.

Next year looks like it’s going to be an incredible year for TV. We’ve got the last season of The Wire and the debut of Alan Ball’s True Blood and Joss’s show. A lot of really great shows have ended over the past couple of years, and now it looks like we’re finally getting the replacements in.

And speaking of good news, it’s also great to hear that Terence Malick has a new film in the works. Not much is known, but the title, Tree of Life, certainly sounds intriguing. Malick is one of the most distinctive, visually skilled filmmakers ever. He uses the medium like no one else, and is coming off his best movie. Obviously, it’s a long way from starting, but I really hope this movie happens in the near future.

The New World: Redefining Cinematic Language

To celebrate thanksgiving, I rewatched Terence Malick's The New World. I saw the film last New Year's Eve and loved it. I was really disappointed to see the film get critically savaged, but thankfully a small online cult of admirers has risen up, and I think future viewers will rank the film right alongside Malick's 70s work. I think it's easily his best movie, and also one of the greatest films of all time.

The thing I love about the film is the way it thoroughly immerses you in a world. Most films are designed to tell a story, and they use a language that was codified in the classical Hollywood era. Films may be paced faster and less narratively cohesive than they were then, but it's still the same basic structures, shot/reverse shot dialogue, and all style and technique designed to move the narrative forward. It's like this is what film must do, and you very rarely see films that manage to tell a story in a totally different way. The New World is one of them.

Days of Heaven was Malick's first masterpiece, a film that was revolutionary in its focus on visual storytelling. There's very little dialogue in his work, rather, he uses music and voiceover to convey meaning. He's at his best when working with very simple stories, one of the reasons The Thin Red Line is his weakest film is that there's too many characters and events, no chance to just get lost in the emotion of the moment. In The New World, the story is a simple cultural myth, and that means most of the basic work is done for him. Doing a straight adaptation of the Pocohontas story would be horribly misguided because we already know what will happen. To try to build tension in traditional ways just wouldn't work. Because we already know what happens, Malick chooses to focus on immersing us in the world, and making us feel what these characters felt at the time.

In doing so, Malick helps to pioneer a new time of filmmaking that has emerged in the past ten years or so. I think the originator is Wong Kar-Wai, a director whose mid 90s work uses incredibly over the top stylistic techniques to construct uniquely emotional moments. I think Fallen Angels is the most beautifully shot movie of all time because not only are the shots well composed and aesthetically pleasing, each frame illuminates the characters' emotions. The best moments in film are almost always about a fusion of visual and music, and virtually every moment in The New World is just that, a visual narrative with musical accompaniment designed to create an emotional reaction. This is his goal with every moment of the movie, to make you feel. The voiceovers aren't so much about conveying information, it's a spell designed to immerse you in the world the characters are experiencing.

As the film opens, Pocohontas says "Come spirit, let me sing the story of this world," invoking a mystical storytelling power to help create a reality. This is very much in line with what Alan Moore or David Lynch talk about, the idea that the storyteller is a vessel through which some the collective unconscious expresses itself. The editing of the film makes you feel that you're being taken on a kind of hallucinatory journey, experiencing many years of history in a state of reverie. It uses dreamlogic or drug logic, moments stringing together outside of time, rising and falling like music.

The best example of this is near the beginning of the film, after Smith is spared. We experience the essence of his relationship with Pocohontas through a series of perfectly chosen moments. What makes it different than a typical montage is the way the characters seem to step outside of time. The events are arranged into a beautiful pattern of rising emotion, culminating in the unbelievable shot in which the camera rotates around Pocohontas, lightning crashing on the shores behind her. To watch the sequence is like experiencing a compressed dose of pure love, the sequence is a dream of a world that could be, and we spend the rest of the film wanting to return to this pure state.

We finally return there at the end of the film, when Pocohontas comes to terms with the loss of the life she had. The film is largely concerned with growing up, and in her son, she sees the same sense of wonder that she once had. Running through the garden, she rediscovers the passion, culminating in the fantastic scene where she cartwheels across the grass in her formal dress. With the music swelling, we experience her death not as sadness, but as passage, a return to whence she came, and it is good. The editing returns us to that moment we thought lost.

A lot of complaints about The New World claim that it was all style, no substance. In cinema, style is the substance. No other medium can so thoroughly affect your perception and immerse you in a completely different world. This film made me feel like I was there at the birth of contemporary America, and through it, I understood the conflicting emotions they felt at the time. That is a more substantial experience than comes from passive engagement with a traditional narrative. Most films are concerned with making you feel for the characters. This film makes you feel exactly what the characters are feeling, and I think that's a more valuable endeavor.

There are moments in this movie that are among the most beautiful in cinema history. They are beautiful not only from an aesthetic point of view, it is also an emotional beauty. Q'orianka Kilcher in particular conveys such pure joy, it doesn't feel like acting at all, she is completely in that moment. Seeing her joy is infectious.

So, I feel like this film is creating a new cinematic language, one that relies on visuals not words as the foundation point. Film was at first inspired by theater, and then by novels, but in recent years we've seen movies that are not governed by traditional scripts, rather they're governed by the possibilities of visual connection. This film, Wong Kar-Wai's work, Miami Vice and David Lynch's Inland Empire all function in this respect, neglecting traditional, outmoded forms of characater development, preferring instead to focus on putting you in a world and making you feel that way. This film has images so powerful, they touch something primal. It is one of the greatest films of all time, and a critical moment in the evolution of this new cinematic language.

The Thin Red Line

One of my favorite films from last year was Terence Malick's The New World. So, having enjoyed that film so much, I decided to revisit the first film of his that I saw, The Thin Red Line. I'm not usually a big fan of war movies, more than any other genre, it's very limiting, there's only so many different ways you can set up the platoon of archetypal characters, all longing to get home. Earlier this week, I watched the Korean film Taegukgi which was well shot, but I'd seen the characters and situations in many other movies. Jarhead basically admitted that there was nothing left to do with the war movie and did a meta take on the genre, where no one actually fights, the only action we see is when they're watching Apocalypse Now. This film seemed to signal the total exhaustion of the genre. Unless you do something set in the future, there's very few interesting directions left for the war movie to explore.

With The Thin Red Line, Malick approaches war in his traditional style, a dreamlike, poetic haze, with lots of voiceover and editing that connects images and feelings rather than plot points. The film is about half masterpiece and half good, but flawed. The parts that do work are primarily the ones away from combat, where we focus on what the soldiers are thinking and feeling.

The opening is incredible, with gorgeous visuals showing Whit's sojourn in the native peoples' village. The joy he feels here hangs over the rest of the film, which generally does not go well for any of the characters. You can see a lot of the roots of The New World here, Whit is basically John Smith, a soldier trying to assimilate into a peaceful village, finding a utopia only to be pulled away from it. The way nature is shot, particularly the underwater swimming scenes, is replicated almost exactly in the latter film.

The basic theme of the film is that war destroys all around it. So, Nick Nolte may express ambivalence about his role as commander, but during the fight, he's still yelling at his troops, ordering them into dangerous situations. The film doesn't give us any sense of satisfaction from the victories, there's no clear line between the battles, so everything just blurs together, and even though progress is made, we know that this island isn't of particular strategic importance. It's just people killing other people. And, like a virus, the corruption spreads to the native people, who are fighting each other at the end of the film, and won't allow Whit back into the village.

The major issue with the film is that there's so many characters, and not that many of them are really developed. There's a few people, Whit, Staros, Jack, whose storylines we can follow, but they'll disappear for a while and we'll just have other people showing up and doing stuff. In some senses this is the film's strength, rather than having cliched archetypal characters we get people who are just there, however, it makes it hard to get emotionally wrapped up in the story. In The New World or Days of Heaven, the limited casts allow for more direction emotional involvement with the story, we know everyone's basic desires and as a result can sympathize with what's going on.

I guess the major issue for me is that Whit and Jack, the two most developed characters, look so much alike, I was constantly trying to keep track of which was which. They're all dressed the same and have the same hairstyle, so it's hard to follow things. I'm hoping if I watch it again, I'll be able to better separate the two of them, I remember the first time I watched it I had an even harder time telling who was who.

The story of Jack and his wife was one of the strongest parts of the film because of the way it was told. By keeping everything visual, we see her through his eyes, the beautiful photography capturing this idealized image of her that he's created. The scene where she's on the swing, or the later scene where she looks out the window are both incredibly striking matches of editing and composition. It's devestating when we find out she's left him.

That plays out in the downtime between the taking of the ridge and the final battle, the best section of the film. The combat scenes are shot in an interesting way, but ultimately it's something we've seen before and doesn't allow Malick to play to his strengths. It's during the downtime that we can explore more of what the characters are feeling. Whit's return to the village encapsulates the theme of the film, and positions it closely with the rest of Malick's oeuvre.

All of his films are about the corruption of Eden. Here it's the war turning this natural community into a battleground, a graveyard. Whit chooses to die at the end because he's seen too much, and can't go back to the way he was. The light he carried is gone, and without that, he doesn't want to live.

So, I think the film is successful on the whole, there's some amazing parts, but the combat scenes don't match up to the non-combat stuff. It may have been Malick's intent to make the combat less engaging than the rest of the film, but as a viewer, it means that about half the film is spent on less interesting material. However, Malick is able to reimagine the war movie and create something that I'd place alongside Apocalypse Now as the only essential war films. I'd rather see someone try something radically different, like Malick did here, than just churn out a formulaic combat melodrama like Taegukgi.

Malick is a master filmmaker because he is uniquely committed to working with what only film can do, using images and music to build connections rather than relying on dialogue or plot. And without this film, I don't think we'd have seen the even more experimental New World.

The New World

Terence Malick seems to exist in sort of a timewarp. Because he didn't do any films between 1978 and 1998, he seems to have missed the fall that most of the 70s new Hollywood filmmakers took during the 80s. So, he never had a One From the Heart, New York, New York, Heaven's Gate, The Sorcerer, etc. What that means is that unlike the good, but rather passionless films you'll see today from Scorsese today, Malick is still making bold, incredible films. The New World is a stunning piece of cinema that more than any other film gives me a real sense of knowing what it would be like for the both the European explorers arriving in America and the natives who were already there. Much like Fellini used a sci-fi template for studying the past in Satyricon, The New World feels almost like an alien invasion story, a clash of two completely different cultures, struggling to find a way to work together.

The first really notable thing about this movie is how gorgeous it is. Watching a film like King Kong, all the visuals that should be stunning feel compromised by shoddy greenscreen work and the knowledge that it isn't real. That may be a bit ridiculous, it's all just light projected on a screen, but at the same time, there's something that feels so real about this movie. It's difficult to imagine that there's fifty people standing behind the camera, that our world exists behind the camera seems impossible because the film so thoroughly inhabits this past world. It's like Malick not only went on location to a different space, it's like he went on location in a different time. No greenscreen here, no CGI, or if there is, it's not noticable, and that's part of what makes the film so successful. You're completely immersed in this world.

The film has very little dialogue, it's almost all visuals, music and voiceover. The score is by James Horner, who's previous work isn't particuarly notable, but here, he takes it to another level. The score reminds me a bit of Koyaanisqatsi, in the way that it feels like a substantial piece of music on its own, not just something to disappear into the film.

The voiceover isn't about conveying narrative information, it's designed to waft over you, creating a mood, and in that respect it's very successful. It reminds me of Wong Kar-Wai's stuff in the way that the voiceovers on their own aren't particularly significant, but combined with the visuals and music, they're very powerful, creating a world to drift through. It also allows the film to keep the characters true. While he's in the Natives' camp, Smith wouldn't really be able to talk to someone about his feelings for Pocohontas, so the voiceover tells us instead.

My favorite part of the film was when Smith and Pocohontas were together in the camp. All of Malick's stuff is about the corruption of edenic existences, and in this case, the Eden is amazing. The connection between them is purely emotional and through the fantastic cinematography and editing, the viewer is completely drawn into the their world. In these fleeting moments, we get a sense of a perfect world, a fusion of two cultures, even as we're aware of the impending destruction of the peace between races. For the rest of the film, you want them to return to this edenic existence, this perfect love. I like the fact that rather going with a blanket condemnation of European colonization, Malick instead makes his points through this relationship, thus we feel the point rather than merely hear it.

One of the major things that makes those scenes so effective is Q'Orianka Kilcher's performance. This is her first major role, but she completely owns the screen, in a way I haven't seen since Faye Wong's work in 2046. Right from the opening frames, you can sense an energy about her, the joy she takes in her freedom. Watching her running through the fields or staring out into a rainstorm, she conveys the experience that she is feeling directly to the viewer, so it's like you're there with her, caught up in her world. As the film proceeds, we watch her changing, losing the fire and becoming more practical, ultimately bidding farewell to the old ways when she lets Smith go and instead chooses the practicality of Rolfe.

You could read the entire film as an allegory of what happened to the Americas, the gradual change over of cultures eventually leading to a rejection of the devotion to nature that used to define the continent, instead it is remade in the image of the old world. It also works on the personal level, it's difficult watching Pocohontas have to compromise the identity she had, but she is one of only two characters in the film who can cross the boundary between worlds. At the beginning of the film, Smith crosses from the European world to the natural world, but he ultimately has to return. Pocohontas crosses from the native world to the European and recognizes that assimilating into their world is the only way for her to survive. That's ultimately why she chooses Rolfe over Smith, he's the safe choice, the one who's always been loyal to her and can protect her.

I thought the final moments where she's running through the hedge garden with her son were incredibly powerful, watching someone who'd once run through the real wilderness now trapped in this artificial, modulated version of nature. However, in the end she finds that the spirit, life, is still present in her son, who has the same enthusiasm for existence that she once had. In him, she sees the purity she was searching for earlier in the film.

This is a long film, but because it isn't so much a narrative movie as an atmosphere, a world you travel to, so just existing there is interesting. I've heard that Malick was contemplating cutting 10-20 minutes, but I would strongly advise against that. I checked my watch at one point in the film and was shocked to find that I was 2:15 into the film, I thought it was no more than 1:30. I could see why someone would find it slow paced, but I think it's elegaic and glorious. It reminds me a lot of Wong Kar-Wai in that way, every frame is such a gorgeous combination of content, visual and music that it's always enjoyable.

So, definitely check this film out. It's very rich thematically, but more importantly it's an enveloping film experience, one I'm looking forward to having again.