"Love. Shall we deny it when it visits us? Shall we deny what we are given?"

I went to see The New World last night. Terrence Malick's films, I was reminded again, are strictly for people who get poetry, at some level. And not just any poetry, but a certain, some might say dated, aesthetic. His points of reference are not pop-culture but rather the American Poetic Tradition: Emerson, Whitman, on down the line through Stevens.

So often people say that his two most recent films are too slow, too long, in need of an edit, etc... but I find them perfectly economical. Malick assumes that we want to focus on something meaningful, gives us something to focus on—and then pares away all the distractions that he can. We know just as much as we need to know about the supporting characters, and no more. The name "Pocahontas"—too freighted, not mentioned. Pidgin English—too easy, belies what Malick wants to say about his heroine, so he doesn't go there... instead, she talks in a surprisingly convincing beautiful second-language prose. As Stevens put it, "One grows used to the weather, / The landscape and that; / And the sublime comes down / To the spirit itself..." What is left is a reflection on the cruelties and mercies of non/human nature, and ultimately, of love.