Fountain, The (Darren Aronofsky, 2006)

The Fountain

 

The Fountain is a symbolic tale of man's thousand year quest to save the life of the woman he loves. The tale is split into three different periods – each from the past, present and future. The man played different characters in each periods.

First period is a man in 16th century Spanish conquistador named Thomas who explore the Mayan land to find the Biblical Tree of Life under the orders of his Queen Isabella believing that the tree grant eternal life to those who drink its sap. The Queen hopes that Tomas' success in finding the tree of life will bring back the secret to eternal life and also will give opportunity to defeat the encroaching forces of the Spanish Inquisition, who want to replace her with a more pliable king or queen.

Another man in 21st century Tommy Creo, a neuro-scientist who is desperately searching for a cure to his dying wife Izzi, who is suffering from from brain-cancer and makes some progress after experimenting on a monkey with a substance discovered in a tree in South America. Meanwhile, Izzi has been writing a book that she calls THE FOUNTAIN, but has left the final chapter and die.

The third man in 25th century is Tom, an astronaut journeys in self-contained, translucent biosphere through the outer reaches of space. He is transporting the aged Tree of Life through the depths of space.

The three man were connected by romantic love and obsession. Same man who re-incarnate in different century who fell in love with the same woman from their past, present and future life.

Tagline use in The Fountain
“What If You Could Live Forever?”


Movie Review : The Fountain
When you watched this movie, you will be confused because three stories are not told in linear order, but in a circular, swirling pattern. At first I thought that the stories happen in the same century but as the story continue I realized the sequence of the story.

 

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Last updated: 2010-03-29 21:39:13 by user07

The Fountain

I like movies that just f—ing go for it. Unabashedly is my favourite adverb. Movies like Magnolia, Amadeus – hell, even Point Break… Better a movie led astray by its convictions than a movie made without conviction, or risk. I’m not about to argue here that The Fountainmakes perfect sense, or even that it offers profound insights. But I would argue that it’s worth seeing. It’s going to baffle and (unintentionally) amuse audiences. But my God, is it felt.

Plot is like a Möbius strip in this movie, but suffice to say there are three main strands; one takes place in the 15th century, where Hugh Jackman plays a Spanish conquistador (who talks like Richard Burton) searching for the Tree of Life in the jungles of South America; another plotline sees Hugh Jackman playing a neuroscientist in the 21st century, searching for a cure for his wife’s terminal cancer; the last plot takes place far in the future, where Hugh Jackman floats through space in a giant bubble, nursing a tree.

I know that all this sounds ridiculous. It is. If this movie weren’t made with conviction –made as though its director’s life depended on it – it would be Barbarella. But Darren Aronofsky casts a spell over The Fountain. Good or bad, the movie wills you to look. I can’t recall another recent movie that so absorbs the viewer. There is a sense, as in great fiction, of being there – even when “there” is ludicrous.

Rachel Weisz, the director’s wife, plays Queen Isabella of Spain, a girl called Izzi (dying of a brain tumour) and a girl called Izzi (who floats through space in Hugh Jackman’s giant bubble). She is radiant. Admittedly, her contemporary incarnation marks another entry in Hollywood’s How to Look Good While Dying roster (see Ali McGraw inLove Story), with her elfin smile and her elf-style hat – but, like The Fountain, her integrity runs contrary to aesthetic appearances. She might spout truisms and waffle about Xibalba (the Mayan Underworld), but she has a real erotic charge with Hugh Jackman in their love scenes, and Aronofsky pushes her past that patronizing tone she sometimes gets (as an actress) when she’s explaining Higher Ways of Thinking.

Why three plotlines? Largely hubris, I expect. But three plots do allow this movie to do things that I’ve never seen in other films. There is a constant sense of visual invention – as though you were watching ideas split and form new ideas at every juncture. For every amazing image in one scene, there are ten the very next. Even in the lab where the present-day Hugh Jackman works, the lights pick out the shape of a nebula. There is a shot where the present-day Jackman speeds down a road in a sports car, and the camera looks at the road from upside down, before flipping over to reveal the car’s destination. The same shot is used again, to show the conquistador-Jackman riding down a road on horseback. Mirroring the shots tells the audience there is a connection: in each case Jackman arrives at his destination to be told bad news.

Movies about life and death are always in danger of seeming pretentious. As a director, Darren Aronofsky seems to willfully embrace pretension (so he’s no use). How can The Fountain succeed when it feels so much like a film school project? It even uses a ring to symbolize eternity, for crying out loud! It can’t be any good.

The Fountain is a story about a man whose wife is dying, and how he copes with it. It could have set in 2007, among hospitals and living rooms, made as an indie or a TV movie, restrained and dignified. But then you would have forgotten it. As it is, part space-opera, part historical epic, (whatever its faults) The Fountain is not forgettable. “Death is the road to awe” according to this movie, and – like most things that leave us awestruck – it’s okay to be a bit embarrassed by what you’ve felt.

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Fountain, The (Darren Aronofsky, 2006)

After the critical success of Requiem For A Dream, few would have thought that talented independent filmmaker Darren Aronofsky's next project would be The Fountain - a special film that works both ways like a double-edged dagger. The film's strength is also its weakness and vice versa. Frankly, it's a tough film to review. It's not made for the general audience but to a specific few who are able to appreciate the art of cinema and unorthodox films.

The Fountain sees Aronofsky trying to be Stanley Kubrick. The key word here is trying. Aronofsky doesn't even come close to what Kubrick achieved for his landmark film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Exploring similar threads such as life and death, and our vulnerability in a vast world, The Fountain is a spiritual journey that is rarely experienced in today's films. Employing creative camera angles and film techniques like flashbacks, it's to Aronofsky's credit that he succeeds in painting a world of serenity interrupted by life's ups and downs.

The music accompaniment by Clint Mansell is seductive and meditative at the same time, and is a key ingredient in fully dissipating Aronofsky's vision. The weakness (and also strength) of The Fountain is that it moves at a laborious pace, making it's short 96min runtime seems like eternity. It's a boring film actually, but the way Aronofsky presents The Fountain is nothing short of brilliant. It's a complex, deeply-woven film of many subtle layers like an onion. The only problem is that peeling these layers is hard. I'm still trying to like The Fountain. And the key word here is trying.

SCORE: 7.5/10
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Recommendations: Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich, 2010), To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962), The Visitor

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Last updated: 2009-08-07 01:53:58 by eternality_tan

The Fountain

I admire Darren Aronofsky as a filmmaker. I think he came out of the gate strongly with Pi and has so far continued in that fashion with Requiem for a Dream and The Wrestler. Even so, The Fountain isn't quite as leftfield a direction for Aronofsky as it might at first seem. Pi, for instance, certainly established a precedent for exploring overtly metaphysical and spiritual themes. What makes The Fountain important in Aronofsky's filmography are the densely layered visuals and unconventional storytelling – two aspects that differ greatly from the otherwise naturalistic and linear approaches to his previous films.

So that puts Aronofsky in context, but why do I think so highly of The Fountain? It doesn't shy away from tackling the big issues of death, grief and loss (themes that resonate with me), and it utilises a fantasy framework to do so. The reason the later is so important is because I've always felt that fantasy has the unique ability to consider the human condition in the abstract, offering an original perspective and recasting what is familiar in a new light, revealing an awful lot more in the process than naturalistic modes of storytelling. And yes, I do consider The Fountain to be more fantasy than science fiction, closer to magic realism and myth-making than extrapolating a potential future based on current scientific trends. The medical science we see in the film is incidental to its thematic development – the later informs the former. The reverse tends to be true when dealing with science fiction.

Perhaps part of the reason for the film's critical and commercial failure is because it is so unreservedly honest about our struggle with death and finding meaning in dark places. As a Christian, I don't believe in the idea of rebirth as portrayed in the film, and I actually find the image of the nebula reducing Tom to nothing to be decidedly nihilistic (he isn't reborn; the tree is), but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate the very human struggle that's at the heart of the film. Rarely do we see someone break down on screen as we do when Tommy returns home from Izzie's funeral, realises he is still missing his wedding ring and, through uncontrollable tears, begins to tattoo his ring finger using the pen and ink she gave him. It's a sublimely acted, confronting scene, showing grief at its most raw, and I don't mind admitting that by the time it rolls around, I'm a blubbering mess. As Izzie, Rachel Weisz brings a childlike acceptance to her condition, which makes it all the more heartbreaking. The film is really a two-hander between Jackman and Weisz, and their chemistry is evident.

I've also stopped trying to shoehorn the film's three timelines into a convenient, explainable narrative. I've finally realised that doing so was never, ever, the point. Instead of narrative cues, Aronofsky chooses to connect the timelines with numerous visual ones – geometric patterns, harsh transitional lighting, the image of the Xibalba nebula – which in turn become metaphysical and spiritual associations that bridge the time between the periods, leaving the story itself open to interpretation and refusing to offer any trite or sentimental conclusions (something Aronofsky also handled magnificently in The Wrestler).

On a geekier note, I love the dark fantasy feel to the conquistador sequences. From the scenes in Spain with the Inquisitor and Queen Isabella's palace, to the dark jungles of New Spain, the set design is less concerned with accurately recreating the period as it is with enhancing the idea of an ongoing struggle for meaning, occasionally finding beauty (the amazing, surreal palace with its floating points of light, the Tree at the top of the pyramid) amidst the brooding atmosphere. A lot of that atmosphere is down to the sound design, which in this case I find to be extremely immersive; a fairly dry mix that avoids a lot of reverb that would ordinarily be used to space out sounds. The future sequences, for example,  are nearly devoid of any sound and are strikingly effective as a result.

Another factor that works magnificently in the film’s favour is Clint Mansell’s score. His minimalist approach – building on short, repititious phrases – takes its cue from the format he used for Requiem, again utilising the Kronos Quartet and adding Scottish rockers Mogwai to the mix. As with Michael Nyman's score for Gattaca, Mansell’s work here was unfairly criticised because of this approach, minimalism being something that is definitely not appreciated by film score fans (not to mention that fact that Mansell comes from a rock background and isn't classically trained). The end product, especially on album, sounds like something approaching a 70's prog-rock concept album. There are three major ‘timeline’ themes, which are really just versions of each other and again reinforce the idea that the search for meaning is one we have struggled with forever.  The score culminates in the exquisite 'Death is the Road to Awe' sequence, a piece that builds to such a climax that the burst of choir and piercing strings as the nebula goes supernova becomes an extraordinary act of catharsis. As the credits roll, it's followed by one of the most haunting piano pieces I've ever heard, 'Together We Will Live Forever'. I'd recommend paying a couple of dollars to get a good quality download of both pieces.

When I first saw The Fountain, I was also striving to 'make sense' of the whole thing, and a lot of people's criticism revolves around not being able to do exactly that. To write the film off because of this is to miss the point though. You just need to let it wash over you, let the catharsis do its work. If humanity has always struggled with accepting death and whatever comes after, then it's hardly fair to expect a film of all things to have all the answers. In this sense, Aronofsky has done the best that could be expected of him, especially given the hoops he had to jump through to get this picture made. I'm looking forward to reading the graphic novel, which I should have soon, which Aronofsky wrote after the first incarnation of the film fell through. It's supposed to be based on his complete script and include a lot of the more expensive set pieces he had to remove for the final film version.

Watch The Fountain again without forcing it to make ‘your’ kind of sense, and you should find, as I did, that it relieves some of the baggage we bring when we consider death, love and life.

[Originally published as part of my Top 20 Films countdown, 2nd November, 2009]

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Recommendations: Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea (Gake no ue no Ponyo), Fountain, The (Darren Aronofsky, 2006)

Last updated: 2010-02-25 08:35:17 by SethMerlo