Login
Spanning over one thousand years, and three parallel stories, The Fountain is a story of love, death, spirituality, and the fragility of our existence in this world.
Hugh Jackman: Tomas / Tommy / Tom Creo
Rachel Weisz: Isabel / Izzi Creo
The Fountain is a 2006 American film directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz. The story comprises three storylines where Jackman and Weisz play different sets of characters: a modern-day scientist and his cancer-stricken wife, a conquistador and his Queen, and a space traveler whom has visions of his lost love. The stories, interwoven with use of match cuts and recurring visual motifs, reflect the themes regarding love and mortality.
The Fountain has to be one of the deepest and beautifulest movies I've ever had the pleasure to witness.
As for the tree of life and Izzi's book, is it real? Is she the tree? Or maybe Tom and Izzi are both a combined element of the tree in the end, the Tree representing or being their eternal love in essence them.
The Fountain's theme of thanatophobia, or fear of death, is a "movement from darkness into light, from black to white", tracing the journey of a man scared of death and moving toward it.
The film begins with a paraphrase of Genesis 3:24, the Biblical passage that reflects the fall of man. Hugh Jackman emphasized the importance of the fall in the film: "The moment Adam and Eve ate of the tree of knowledge, of good and evil, humans started to experience life as we all experience it now, which is life and death, poor and wealthy, pain and pleasure, good and evil. We live in a world of duality. Husband, wife, we relate everything. And much of our lives are spent not wanting to die, be poor, experience pain. It's what the movie's about." Aronofsky also interpreted the story of Genesis as the definition of mortality for humanity. He inquired of the fall, "If they had drank from the tree of life instead of the tree of knowledge, what would have separated them from their maker? So what makes us human is actually death. It's what makes us special."
So inevitably the main message The Fountain delivers is one where death is a part of life and it's never easy to lose a loved one; True lovers fight to keep this love always. We never want to lose our family, our parents, our grandparents, our wives, our husbands, and accepting this will happen one day is one of the hardest things to do.
The Fountain is perhaps so special and ahead of it's time because it explores the whole notion of Death, rebirth and what love truly is, not to mention the difficult process of losing someone and how we would do anything to prevent it from happening. In essence sometimes we can't change something that's destined to happen but this is a hard road to go down, we live like we will never die then grow fearful when our time draws close. The Fountain is neither stereotypically happy or sad, in the end it's resolute, a simple Zen-like fable bordering upon interpretation and sets the par for heavy enlightened conversation.
Death as a means of a cycle, predictably falls upon deaf ears in our current age we live in. All in our little bubbles, our collective one track thoughts. This is a time where the mainstream love overblown effects with no deeper meaning attached. We want a movie that has a basic plot, simple characters, that forever keep changing titles but in essence end up being the same film released over and over. Well forgive me, I don't want that, I strive to find material in this medium that questions the fabric of our existence, beliefs and physical World we live in.
The casting of The Fountain are beautifully realized by the two leads; Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz embody love for each other, a love that is genuinely believable. One scene near the end where he is looking at her like an embodiment of memories, of realities where the Queen Isabella and Izzy merge, is wondrous to behold. Which begs me to wonder if the book Izzi writes isn't something made up from her imagination but one where she has also remembered a previous life. Queen Isabella being one of the incarnations. Aztec beliefs also strangely mirror Buddhist beliefs in a ''Death is the road to Awe'' sacrificial sense, underlining First Father and Rebirth. The realization dawns, that the future Tom floating in his bubble, is indeed not Tom at all but the embodiment of the Aztec God First Father. In essence is Future Tom First Father?
The Fountain uses each three segments and strands of the singular story to represent and reflect one another. A Grand Inquisitor begins to mirror Izzi's cancer, the future Tom mirroring enlightenment and God First Father, the present Tom having to go on by existing. When the tree is dying so is the wife; If the tree dies so does Tom, because Izzi and the Tree are his reason for living. Life however goes on.
The ring that Queen Isabel gives to Tomas is a representation of their love, the fragile bond that two soul-mates have, can be severed it would appear. When the ring is lost in the present, one would assume Tom is also losing his love, so by the time we reach the mind blowing final sequence and experience one of the best endings ever conceived; The revelation is that the ring which is love can never be lost. The past or Izzi's mind is always in the future and present, meaning Tom and Izzi can never truly be apart.
The Fountain is answers and questions, a complex puzzle and Rubix Cube defining a cycle fusing death and life. When we see each reality most will interpret these three strains as singular paths of different existing. The only one of relevance linking them all together is the present, the past one being Izzi's mind. When we come to the end sequence, it shows us proceedings that are mind blowing; Proceedings hard to comprehend, and also something that is a revelation of the film's ultimate answer. Obviously the answer is open to interpretation or even controversy with audiences, which for me adds to the duality during the film's layered storytelling and soulful visual acculturation.
Darren Aronofsky is amongst the greatest film-makers of Modern day artists and imaginative thinkers. He is a visionary, and one of the greatest unique script writers out there, who inspires with rapturous wonder. Hugh Jackman's performance ranks among the greatest male screen performances in unappreciated movie history. Rachel Weisz as always is perfection, as is Ellen Burnstyn, and Sean Patrick Thomas. Harmonious composer Clint Mansell teams up with The Kronos Quartet and the Scottish rock band Mogwai to bring us some of the most beautiful and ambient music I have ever experienced from the Universe that is sound. Matthew Libatique's cinematography is breath taking too making a worthy companion to the rendition of sound. It is so simple, yet so effective and mesmerizingly hypnotic. Jay Robinowitz deserves special mention here because the story is so well put together; It quite flows, and as an editor and writer myself, I can understand how hard that must have been to achieve and attain. The three time lines weave in and out of each other in such a flawless way.
Darren Aronofsky has a talent for looking at things and a way of storytelling that are ahead of this time. Not many will appreciate this or understand the imaginative structure and message the film captures; Ultimately these people are sadly missing out.
Upon reflection Fountain is very similar to Requiem but does it in a more spiritual manner and it also underlines hope with time.
Darren's fascination with Mortality has always been there, just go back to Pi with the conversation at that Coffee Shop concerning the Tree Of life with the film's mathematician scientist.
The Fountain will cut film-lovers down the middle; One half not seeing the bigger picture and dismissing it as cult inducing hippy trash about some bald guy in a bubble and the other half truly seeing it for the deep visual entrancing Journey of one man's struggle with Death, in a race against time to try to save his wife. A story concerning mortality and a love as deep and infinite as the stars in the night sky.
A masterpiece of story, art and film, The Fountain belongs with 2001: A space Oddysee and Requiem for a Dream for it's higher depictions of life and love. Each time I watch it there's always another piece, another juicy mesmerizing question raised; Always something that I didn't see before.
It's answer being not one of eternal life, rather one of mortality, struggle and acceptance yet again. Izzi shows us in her book, Tom's past mind set, one of unrelenting unwavering head long brashness. Hence why he drinks from the tree of life he is consumed by it, unready. Yet in this act Tom and Izzi's minds connect future with past, catching present in the middle with harmonic proportions. The answer that remains is that memories, love, death, and time are impossible to fight, reminiscent of swimming up river, fighting against a strong current, when really you should be going with the flow. It's simple: When it comes to The Fountain, what would my advice be? Go with the flow, and reap the rewards.
''All these years, all these memories, there was you. You pull me through time.''
10/10
