After a hard day’s work watching The New World’s late night show was the worst thing that could happen to anyone. Actually even if you haven’t had a hard day, watching The New World can be a traumatic experience. I usually have a great amount of patience to watch any film - no matter how good or bad. But this one just takes the cake. So while watching the film, all I could think of was wise cracks.
Here’s my take on director Terrence Mallick’s saga of a navigator and his tribal love.
The film is a tribute to our own great Sanjay Leela Bhansali. No offence to anyone. The film starts with Khamoshi. There are virtually no dialogues just shots which dissolve from one to the other. A troupe of navigators from England is wading the waters to look for new land and they do. THey try to make home in this habitat which is the property of tribals who speak in a dialect that is beyond understanding for the talking humans. They actually scream like Nana Patekar would in Khamoshi. The director doesn’t even bother to give sub titles. Is the audience that intelligent to understand what he is trying to communicate or he just wants people to come to their own conclusion. NEither choices appealed to me or to many others sitting in the auditorium.
From the Khamoshi phase we move on to Black. Colin Farrell is given charge to meet the head of the tribals and trade with them for food and other supplies. A tribal girl falls for him and then starts between them the teaching and learning session. THey both try and teach one another their individual communicating languages. Which one is Rani and which one is Amitabh, is a little difficult to tell. But it is Black nevertheless.
Colin Farrell succeeds in not only learning the language but also in falling madly in love with the girl. Circumstances take a turn and after a while she gets married to someone else. Five years of blissful life later, she realizes that Colin is still alive (she was informed otherwise) and tells her husband that he is the one. And this is where begins Hum DIl De Chuke Sanam.
The husband arranges for her to meet her lover - a la Ajay Devgan. All this while the director has still not given any full length dialogues to the cast members and neither do their expressions really convey what the story is being narrated. After Hum DIl De Chuke Sanam scenario ends - that is the girl comes back to her husband and bids goodbye to her lover, we are given glimpses of a younger Devdas.
This review is just to say that the film has nothing in it that leaves an impression. THere are a few shots which are shot in scenic beauty - which are beautiful. Colin FArrel is consistently good in all scenes but his efforts are totally wasted because of the director’s lack of directing ability.