This film has been on my ‘to see’ list for the longest time, but it’s taken ‘til now (and getting hooked on the score!) before getting around to it.

And to be honest, it wasn’t entirely what I was expecting! It is a very, very beautiful film, but I confess I thought there would be more story, more epic narrative rather than just epic landscaping and haunting music – and a snapshot of a very brutal lifestyle.

It’s not really a complaint – what’s done here is done superbly, just know what you’re going in to.

Despite the amazing difficulty of shooting this film, including the North Carolina heat and hard-to-reach location shots, watching it is a beautiful and altogether memorable experience. The real center of this movie is the deep beauty of the Blue Ridge mountains. (I watch it and get homesick.) It is beauty and meaning transmitted without words. Its English and French, American Indian and Frontiersman live together in a mythological world, a rude eden, where the Platonic forms of the good, of courage, of eros and beauty, of savagery and violence all come close to the surface of things and allow themselves to be glimpsed in the expression of faces, the inclination of eyes. The main actors, Daniel Day-Lewis and Madeleine Stowe are beautiful without the help of Los Angeles. There is also the amazing linguistic intelligence demonstrated by the American and Canadian Indian actors, Wes Studi (Magua) and Dennis Banks (Ongewasgone). Wes Studi did a magnificent job in his role of Magua. Magua is our own ID, pushed up against the equally heartless Europeans and in competition with Day-Lewis’ Nathaniel Poe. It goes without question that the 20 seconds of eternity captured in the face of Jodhi May is captivating beyond description. Warning, the reel “Promontory” by Trevor Jones can get stuck in one’s head for a lifetime.