Terrence Malick is a wonderful director whose work is sumptuous and engrossing. With Badlands and Days of Heaven, both of which I haven’t seen in a preposterously long time, Malick’s lingering tones and rich, meticulous shots are fully on display. In his career, which has spanned decades, the gifted American director has only made four feature length films and one short.

Malick’s use of his contemplative and pensive directorial style makes his films captivating and involving in the most inimitable of ways, as he unfolds his stories by involving the viewer in the panorama, the characters, and the time period without the suspension of belief. Malick’s films have an opulence to them that is rarely duplicated by any working director today. I look forward with immense eagerness to his next film, Tree of Life.

2005’s The New World is surely no exception to Malick’s trademarks. Encased in the most beautiful naturalistic surroundings, this tale of discovery is one of the best films from 2005. Malick also wrote this story of the founding of Jamestown, Virginia, and the settlement that is placed there by the English. The New World also highlights the story of Captain John Smith and Pocahontas, treating their love story with tenderness and a sense of adventure. The New World features production design by Jack Fisk and costumes by Jacqueline West. The set design and the scope of the production are incredible to experience and still seem remarkable after several viewings of the film.

The New World is a film about the strangeness and complexities of the arrival of the English settlers to Virginia, first and foremost. Using Pocahontas as its central character, the film explores these notions with depth and detail as her character becomes accustomed to a new society and becomes slowly and reluctantly assimilated into it. Pocahontas is played by the wonderfully talented Q'orianka Kilcher. Kilcher was fourteen at the time of shooting and some of her scenes caused a great deal of controversy, leading to some editing by Malick of a few scenes between her and Colin Farrell. Kilcher’s Pocahontas is never addressed by name throughout the film.

The New World strips away all of the fantasy and lore about the arrival of the settlers, choosing instead to see the events through the eyes of Kilcher’s character as her world suddenly has some very new, very strange visitors. The settlers begin to construct a fort with immediacy as Captain John Smith (Farrell) heads out to explore on his own. He meets Pocahontas and a bond is instantly formed after she saves him from certain death. The English, especially Smith, are as awed as the natives with the sumptuousness and the strangeness of this new predicament. We explore communications, customs, and ways of life through the eyes of the natives and the English, with neither side being portrayed as villainous or wrong. With Malick’s lens, we all are simply observers of the foundation and exploration of newness, strangeness, and the romantic notion of discovery.