The New World

I like this movie. I am surprised. But, I find myself wondering if I am naive/exploitive.

I recently watched Terrence Malick's film The New World because it was recommended to me by a friend who has admirable taste in movies. I expected to rip the film apart -- to proclaim at the end of my viewing that this was yet another film to promote the myth of a woman/girl that was so entranced by John Smith she threw herself between him and death. And, the film does do that.

But it is also one of the most beautifully shot films I've ever seen. We are asked to see the land from two points of view: those that lived there and those that settled there. Then we are asked to see the clash of the two cultures. It is this clash that becomes "The New World" not the land itself. Both cultures encountered a New World, and both cultures would be forever changed. And, to save the film from the Disney complex, Malick requires that the unnamed (until she takes on the English name, Rebecca) Pocahontas character become mythic rather than human -- she symbolizes that new world and the horrible pain that it causes.

And while I don't love Collin Farrell, Q'orianka Kilcher is fantastic. She is a pleasure to watch.

Yet, even as I find myself enjoying the movie, I also find myself wondering: is this yet another glorification of the genocide? Am I enjoying their (and my own) pain? As a European-American audience member, when is it okay to enjoy a movie like this? A movie like The Pianist? A photography exhibit like Without Sanctuary?

Where is the ethical line?