The Fountain (2006)

96 Minutes, Color, USA, 2006

Written By: Darren Aronofsky

Directed By: Darren Aronofsky

Dramatis Personae:

Hugh Jackman plays multiple roles: he is Captain Tomas Verdes, 16^th-century Conquistador charged with finding the mythical "Tree of Life;" he is Doctor Tommy Creo, modern-day doctor doing cancer research; and he is Tom, some manner of quasi-mystical being in the far-flung future.

Rachel Weisz also plays multiple roles: she is Queen Isabella of Spain, who commissions Tomas Verdes with his task; she is Izzy, Tommy Creo's terminally ill wife; and she is a hallucination who torments Tom on his solitary journey.

Ellen Burstyn is Lillian Gazetti, Tommy Creo's boss and close friend.

Mark Margolis is Father Avila, Franciscan Monk and guide to Tomas Verdes in the New World.

Stephen McHattie is the ultra-creepy Grand Inquisitor of Spain, nemesis to Tomas and Isabella.

Fernando Hernandez is the bad-ass Lord of Xibalba, Mayan high priest and guardian of the Tree of Life.

Commentary:

I run hot and cold on Darren Aronofsky. His films are puzzling but artfully done, leaving one with mixed emotions. Is he a mad genius or a pretentious amateur? Is he somewhere in between? In a sense, he is a more pure "artist" than mainstream filmmaker: his films are more emotional than intellectual experiences, composed of striking images and big ideas. Even if you don't like his movies, they leave an impression. Which, I think is the nature of art.

In The Fountain, we have what is perhaps the boldest statement Aronofsky has yet made. With his non-linear tale of love and time and the human condition, told through powerful, almost totemic imagery, he's made a claim to the mantle of Stanley Kubrick. I think the Grand Master's throne is secure for the time being, but this is certainly a memorable film experience.

Our story opens in 16^th-century Mesoamerica, as Conquistador Tomas Verdes leads his men on a raid on the lost temple of Xibalba, the rumored final resting place of the Tree of Life – the very tree that grew in the Garden of Eden, the tree whose sap can give immortality. The raid does not go well, and as the Lord of Xibalba – a warrior-priest bedecked in pre-Columbian finery that must be seen to be believed – prepares to deliver the final blow...we're suddenly elsewhere.

Somewhere in Time and Space, a lone being named Tom journeys through the void toward a distant nebula in what can only be described as a massive snowglobe, a self-contained environment encased in a giant bubble. His only companion on this journey is a massive tree, from which he will occasionally take sustenance and to which he occasionally will speak. The tree seems to possess some measure of sentience, because it will communicate with him by showing him images of a past life. In this previous life, Tommy Creo is a doctor, member of a cancer-research team. We're introduced to him on a day when he has a breakthrough: he discovers a rare botanical substance from Central America, and when formulated and used to treat a test monkey, the animal's overall health begins to improve dramatically, to the point where it looks as if the aging process has actually been halted. The tumor, however, remains unaffected, much to Tommy's dismay. Eventually we discover the reason for his dismay: his wife, Izzy, is dying of the very cancer he's trying to cure. And she's recently taken a turn for the worse. While Tommy races against time to develop a treatment, Izzy immerses herself in Mayan folklore, research for a book she's writing and hopes to finish before she dies – a book about a Conquistador's quest for the Tree of Life. One fateful day she tells him about Xibalba, a nebula that Mayan astronomers believed was their netherworld, where dead souls went to await rebirth...and the Mayan belief that if you planted a tree at the grave of a loved one, their spirit would enter the tree and become one with it...

Like Kubrick's sci-fi epic, this movie is something you really have to be in the right frame of mind to watch and enjoy. It's out there, man. And at times it's hard to watch; it's very personal, very emotional piece, dealing with the themes of dying and regret against a fantastical backdrop. The main story is that of Tommy's quest to save his wife, and the classically tragic turn it takes. It's a theme older than time itself: he's so busy trying to save his wife's life he never has time to just LIVE life with her. The story's been told before, of course, but here it's told with a metaphysical twist: as we follow Tom's journey to the nebula, we begin to understand what he's looking for. Tom is a lonely god, kept company only by memories, and he seeks the thing he's lost along the way.

Aronofsky has always been good at telling a story through striking images, and this piece is no exception. There is some truly startling imagery to be found in the past and future sequences: the Tree of Life itself is huge and primordial-looking, putting on the air of a lost paradise, a natural world untouched by Man, where the divine still walks upon the earth. Divine, and dangerous, too, in the way untamed nature can be; Tomas Verdes discovers the hard way why no one has ever returned with the sap of immortality. Tom's journey through space is given a spiritual backdrop, as if it's taking place so far in the future that technology would look supernatural to modern eyes. And perhaps it IS supernatural; if Tom is Tommy Creo, or was once in a half-forgotten time, then he's existed for so long that he could almost BE a god. He's certainly on a god's errand.

Meditations on immortality abound in the piece, and the varied forms it may take: whether genuine physical immortality, or immortality through art, or achievement, or through the memories of a loved one. Izzy's book becomes a powerful symbol in the work, and the fact that she leaves the last chapter for Tommy to write says so much – about her acceptance of her fate, and his unwillingness to do the same. And which is better? To be alone in the void, undying but in total solitude? Or to live the blinking of an eye we are all allotted to its fullest possible extent? To Aronofsky's credit, he does not answer the question in any straightforward way – it is Tom's achievement of near divinity, after all, that allows him the transcendence necessary to change the past for the better – but rather merely presents the evidence for our review. Which, I think, is what an Artist is supposed to do.

Not to say the film is perfect; as an artist, Darren Aronofsky is nothing if not self-aware. He has been since Pi. The movie has its moments of pure theatricality; there are times you can almost see the heartstrings being pulled. Aronofsky is also apparently a big fan of the overexposure technique, which makes a scene look bathed in blinding light. Sure, given the theme of the piece there are times when it's wholly appropriate, but there still is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Not that I'm saying I don't like seeing the luminous Rachel Weisz look even more luminous (it helps when the director's your boyfriend, eh Rachel?), but still, there's a time to tone these things back.

The best thing I can say about this movie can probably be summed up in the reaction with the audience I saw it with: half of them got up and left before the movie was over, and the half that were left (including my girlfriend) were sobbing uncontrollably. If that's not Art, I don't know what is.

Things To Look For:

- Hugh Jackman. My God, but this man is an ACTOR. How do you go from Wolverine to this role? It's startling. As Tommy Creo, Jackman is required to run the gamut between despair, rage, and joy, and he nails every last one of them. He plays Tommy most of the time with a low-key intensity, so that when he erupts into grief-fueled rages, it's all the more jarring. When Tommy can no longer keep it all bottled up inside, he lashes out, and those moments are frankly terrifying; he almost becomes a different person for a few seconds. And it's all the more believable, thanks to Jackman's performance.

- Those of you with an aversion to tattooing or to needles or to self-mutilation might do well to avert your eyes for a couple of scenes. Tom's self-inflicted tattoos – an ever-growing sequence of rings running down his arms – become a more and more powerful symbol as the story goes on, and we realize what they mean. It really helps to understand both Tommy and Tom, and just how all-devouring their obsession has become...especially when you realize the significance of the tool Tommy uses to apply his tattoos.

- Now, I'm as much a fan of Rachel Weisz as the next guy, but her American accent needs a LOT of work. I'm sure there are British people who find it just as grating on the ears when an American tries to put on a British accent, but bad accents just take me out of movies more than anything else. Although, I have seen and heard enough English actors pretending to be American to realize how the American accent sounds to English ears. It's all nasally and unpleasant. Good God, is THAT how we sound to the rest of the world? No wonder they hate us.

- Darren Aronofsky eschewed the use of Computer-Generated imagery in this movie, and I think that's a good thing indeed. It gives the piece a far different look than most visually-intensive movies being made these days. Things seem more real in this movie, and therefore have a lot more impact. Given the thematic material present, it's essential that things look as real as possible. And I think it works beautifully. The images stay with you, and had they been rendered in a different fashion I doubt they would have that same power.

Date Posted: November 24th, 2006

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