THE FOUNTAIN - the most underrated film of the decade
September 26th 2010 22:15
After Darren Aronofsky's sophomore effort, Requiem For a Dream was released, the young writer/director was dubbed by many as a great new talent, a film maker who wasn't afraid to tell a hard hitting tale of dilated pupils and grinding teeth, paving the way towards decayed dreams and wasted life at the hands of pills and needles, all delivered with a dose of searing powering. Following this, Aronofsky conceived the colossal, visually grand, lavish production, The Fountain, which caused audiences and so called film critics the world over to scratch their heads in confusion and over analyse all the wrong parts of the film. Unanimously panned, The Fountain would become a black mark against Aronofsky's name, but to this day Aronofsky stands by The Fountain as his best film – and so do I.
It goes with out saying that The Fountain is a film you have to be in the mood for, a grandly ambitious art film that if you enter into unprepared you will dismiss it entirely as it goes over your head. Intellectually it's a film ahead of it's time, over flowing with rich emotion and visual symbolism.
Released in 2006, The Fountain is a gorgeously visual spin out. Starring Hugh Jackman (X-Men, The Prestige, Scoop), who gives his best performance ever. Jackman plays scientist Tom Creo, a man driven to obsession in finding a cure for his wife Izzi, played by Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardner, My Blueberry Nights), who has a fatal brain tumour. Tom is a man over whelmed, driven to obsession, attempting to defy death with science as he endlessly experiments with possible cures during her final weeks.
Izzi shows Tom a book that she is writing called The Fountain, a love story that parralells their journey together in 16th century Spain where Tom is a Conquistador and she a Queen. The film goes off on flights of imagination, telling tales of the same struggle faced in the past as a conquistador in seach of The Tree Of Life, returning back to the present and then projecting far into the future where Tom explores the plains of the univese. What people misunderstand most about The Fountain is, it's not about the quest for life but instead the acceptance of death and if you can relate your own loses to the film, it provides for an overwhelmingly emotional experience.
The film jumps between the past, present and future, demonstrating the timelessness of love and grief, the film meditates deeply on the irrelevance of time in relation to the extremes of human experiences. It's telling that this is in fact a science fiction film with a noticeable lack of technology on display, everything appears in an organic form. The film's dazzling vision is clearly a very personal one and it's a film which looks unlike anything else. The cinematography by Matthew Libatique is rich with a golden hue. The non-cgi special effects are all stunningly unique and the cast also includes the fantastic Ellen Burstyn (Resurrection, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Requiem For A Dream) and the chameleon like thespian talents of Cliff Curtis (Bringing Out The Dead, Three Kings, Once Were Warriors) and Mark Margolis (The Cotton Club, Pi, Glory).
The Fountain is a cascading love story that closes it's doors for two young people and simultaneously opens up others metaphorically. It's flaws, which it definitely has, are mainly superficial, what's important here are the standards the film strives for, reaching for what some call pretentious, but I call profound. Wearing it's heart and soul on it's sleeve, The Fountain is at once elating, emotionally validating and achingly beautiful and I'm going to challenge all who scoffed at the film by suggesting that the one type of person who will not be able appreciate the film for everything it truly is are cynics.
The Fountain requires an enormous amount of emotional investment in order to connect with it. Requiring that we transpose our own feelings and experiences with grief, in there lying the key to understanding what is actually at the heart of The Fountain. After all, being cynical is far too easy - we remain passive, it's much more difficult (and scary) to open ourselves up fully, investing our real emotions into a film, which many audiences resist doing.
One of the key things that initially caused so much confusion regarding what The Fountain was actually about came out if it's marketing, The Fountain was marketed as a man's quest for immortality, for eternal life, in order to save his dying wife. If viewed in this manner then The Fountain does appear to be all back to front and ill conceived, but that's where most critics got it wrong. The Fountain is not a film about the quest for eternal life, but actually it's a film about accepting death as a part of life, embracing death as inevitable and not trying to fight it.
Why the film is so misunderstood and why people see Hugh Jackman's quest as the purpose of the story instead of what he really is, which is a hopeless fool, is because the director empathises with his heart breaking denial and resistance with a deep sensitivity. I can only say that it's sad indictment that so many people who saw this film were unable to do the same thing.
The ultimate flaw in The Fountain is it's tendency for filler, milking out repetitive imagery until you suspect that the film makers are trying to compensate for a film that has too short a running time and this does ultimately hurt the film's impact. What gives it a strong guiding hand in it's execution is Clint Mansell's incredible musical score, which swirls and grows with the film, leading to a crescendo, with it's climactic centrepiece, 'Death Is The Road To Awe', as Tom finally has the heart breaking revelation that his obsession with finding a cure for death robbed him of his final moments with his wife.
The Fountain reaches a stupendous flight of imagination as all three tales bond together visually and their universal themes hurtle towards the heavens. By the end, all that's left is Tom - grounded, his feet planted firmly, his eyes gazing up at the stars, having to realize that everything ends eventually. It's an astonishing and beautiful performance from Jackman. Tom leads the saddest of existences, forever trying to justify death and losing concept of appreciating the time he has together with his wife. It's a magnificent and touching poem about loss and death - the one definite truth that will always define our existence through time.
| 149 |
| Vote |
subscribe to this blog
Comment by Deni
Abstract Magick
Cinema Herald
When I first saw this movie, I didn't know what to expect. I had to see it a second time to fully appreciate it. My husband loved it though. It's definitely a "heavy" film.
Unfortunately, I don't think there are very many "thinkers" in today's audiences and gems like this get trashed. It's unfortunate.
Comment by ShaunK
Screen Adventure
Comment by Irene
Grammar Matters
Interrobang
From what I remember, this film and The Prestige were out at around the same time, and both films made me realise that Hugh Jackman can do so much better than Wolverine.
Comment by David O'Connell
20/20 Filmsight
Screen Fanatic
But in my humble opinion, The Fountain is an almost incomprehensively awful film. It fails on virtually every level. Underpopulated and thus without a fluid, real world beyond the characters is alienating for me. It all feels like lavish but hollow stage sets after a while. To me none of these worlds felt real for even a millisecond.
The 16th century scenes are embarrassingly awful. Stilted, terrible dialogue. I laughed wryly at their pointlessness throughout I have to say. But even the pure silliness of those scenes can't come close to those with the alternate shaven-headed Hugh floating in the bubble communing with the tree. There's no words to describe how puerile and misguided these sections are. And the end of the film? Ah, man, what a spectacular mess.
Aronofsky's heart is in the right place sure, I grant you that, but it's an epic love story in theory only. An epic misfire in execution.
I do take issue with the blatantly defensive mindset you had going into this review however. A straight assessment expressing your own subjective breakdown is fair enough but to continually make reference to those people who either don't or won't agree with your viewpoint - i.e. setting up a false barrier against the raging morons from below who can't or won't "get it". That leaves a bad taste.
It's not misunderstood at all. It's a film that's fairly treated by all, it just so happens that most people think it stinks. As do I, and as you know I'm a HUGE Aronofsky fan so there's nothing prejudicial from my corner. I worship his first two films - and love The Wrestler. Here, in an anomolous twist, he allowed a vanity project to get out of hand. He helmed a train wreck. In My Opinion.
All great directors have works that blot their copybooks and become painful curiosities in the years that follow - for instance, Scorsese has New York New York, Hitchcock has Torn Curtain, Bergman has The Serpent's Egg, De Palma has Bonfire of the Vanities, Cronenberg has Naked Lunch, Spielberg has Always, and George Lucas has American Grafitti, THX, and Star Wars 1,2,3,4,5 and 6.
If you love this film, great. Personally I forgot it five minutes after the end credits thankfully began to roll. It's gone to me, forever. Better than Pi and Requiem? Subjectivity, fair enough, but that's just lunacy.
The Fountain is ultimately trite, pretentious and without substance despite its lofty intentions. And I for one, have no problem emotionally investing in a film. Man, I cried my goddamn eyes out at the end of Marley and Me.
Comment by ShaunK
Screen Adventure
Comment by ShaunK
Screen Adventure
Jackman is surprisingly good here. He got alot of good roles that year actually.
Comment by Matt Shea
Comment by ShaunK
Screen Adventure
Yes, it is a film with plenty of flaws but it proves that any issues with it's manner of execution is superficial as it really connected with me.
I began to appreciate this film following the loss of someone very dear to me, shortly afterwards, I heard an interview Howard Stern did with Aronofsky and Aronofsky said, "everybody will get it - eventually at some point in their lives" - I went cold when I heard these prophetic words of doom because I completely understood what he meant.
thanks for reading Matt!
Comment by Deni
Abstract Magick
Cinema Herald
Comment by ShaunK
Screen Adventure
Comment by Deni
Abstract Magick
Cinema Herald
I'm glad you reviewed this film actually. I did take a way from this film more than others BUT, on the other hand and despite my liking the movie, I can definitely understand how some people are put off by it - which is unfortunate.
I don't recommend this movie to everyone...and I was curious what other Orble writers thought.
Comment by Jason King
Sydney Table
Salty Popcorn
Total Randomness
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
As you know I liked this movie a lot too. Though it is the last on my Aronofsky list it is still worthy of scrutiny. One of the better films about love and grief and I agree completely that it is a film that needs personal loss for the viewer to appreciate.
Visually astonishing and one of only two films with Hugh Jackman that I like. he did seem miscast to me, but made the most of it.
Comment by ShaunK
Screen Adventure
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
For the Jackman role:
I think David Duchovny would have been able to nail it. (Check out Trust The Man and Playing God to see why.)
Sam Rockwell would have bought something interesting.
Aaron Eckhart would have been able to bring it.