Wednesday Nite cinematheque Kickoff

Come, spirit.
Help us sing
the story of our land.
You are our mother;
We, your field
of corn.
We rise...
from out of the soul
of you.
~prayer in Powhatan

The first screening at the wednesday nite cinematheque was an event enjoyed by all present and it was unanimously decided 2 make it a weekly event.
The first screening "The New World" was in ways just the perfect movie to kickstart this phenomenon ---
While the purpose of wednesday nite cinematheque is to experience new worlds and visions by great minds in the artistic world of cinema (contrary to the corporate world of cinema where cinema is a source of revenue, here the commercial value of cinema has zero importance)...the movie also in a way was about exploring the very concept of exploration....
- while in the beginning the Europeans are surprised to see the new world, towards the end we see the total surprised reaction of the native on reaching England where he has come with a bunch of sticks with instructions from his leader to tie a knot for every white man the native encounters, and more importantly to meet this God that white men talk about so much.
- The New World was about love in its purest form where it knows not of anything other then giving and expressed through Pocahontas it spoke of a culture where these values were intact.
- Through the time of Captain Smith spent with the tribes the film maker observes the striking contrast between the peaceful and happy natives with the ever fighting (lots of infighting and politics) attitude of the settlers...smith reiterates through the rest of the film that the only truth in his life were the time spent in the jungle with Pocahontas (though throughout the movie this name is not uttered) but the film maker is not going to take the easy way by setting the direction for the movie, Captain Smith still slave to his own personality knows he does not deserve her love and abandons her for other missions...
- The movie asks very fundamental questions, in one scene we have Pocahontas asking John Rolfe - "Why does earth have colors?"
- It was a typical Terrence Malick movie...poetic, expecting the audience to surrender to the movie, lots of space which some people would refer as slow...
- A lot of effort went in recreating the history, apart from extensive research a lot of natives out of the 3000 who speak Powhatan today were employed to teach the language to the native actors, the movie was given a seal of approval by the Tribal Heads of Native Americans..more then a million feet of reel was used and more then 2000 females were auditioned for the role of Pocahontas before selecting 14 year old actress Q'Orianka Waira Qoiana Kilcher, her age probably the reson why the intimate scenes have refrained from even a kiss.
- the movie was shot entirely in natural light like all Terrence Malick movies

While the movie garnered only a measly 12 million compared to 75 million by Brokeback Mountain it was by far the most loved movie of the year in the Cult Cinema section.
A interesting review of the movie...

Watch this space for next wednesday movie announcement...