The New World

Terrence Malick's latest offering (his fourth film in 21 years) is a majestic piece of cinema. Reworking the Pocahontas legend for a mature audience, The New World is at once a story of love lost and gained and a hymn to the natural world.

Based on the writings of English explorer and adventurer John Smith, Malick's refashioning takes a more contemplative approach to a well-known story.

Set in the early 1600s, the film centres on the encounter between native Americans and a fleet of English explorers as they quest for legendary treasures and seek to establish a new colony.

The "spectacle" of the ships arrival as witnessed by the natives marks the beginning of a new episode in both their lives and those of the prospectors.

At the centre of this encounter is the stunning Pocahontas (played with amazing beauty and depth by 15-year-old Q'orianka Kilcher). She saves Captain John Smith (Colin Farrell) from being killed as he is captured by the native Powhatan tribe when on an expedition to gather food for the crumbling settlement of Jamestown.

Smith is allowed to live and learns the ways of the natives. During his time with them, he develops a relationship with Pocahontas which grows into love.

After some months, Smith returns to his settlement and from this point forth the cultural exchange irrevocably contaminates the very land on which both the natives and settlers now exist, as a series of events precipitate conflicts on various levels.

As we follow the contrasting fortunes of Pocahontas and the itinerant adventurer captain, the film also offers us a fascinating insight into the birth of a nation, as we see this infant colony displaying the ideals, flaws and virtues of a fledging country.

Rich and luscious, Malick's tapestry of images combines with a narrative driven by the theme of discovery - the sighting of new lands and people - and also new lives and loves.

One of the film's key elements is the painstaking research and period detail created by Malick and his team, which brings to life a lost Native American Indian dialect.

Both contemplative and humane, The New World is a film which shows us a landscape and environment which in some ways we know, but which is somehow rendered afresh through the eye of Malick's lens.

A finely-detailed and beautifully shot work, Malick's The New World belongs to a cinema of awe and beauty.