[image:202:l] Darren Aranofsky’s long labored over, much anticipated (at least among geeky film fans), movie is finally here. Many hoped it would be a modern 2001. Is it?
No.
This movie has very little in common Kubrick’s classic including the polarized passions it produces. People usually either love 2001 or hate it. I love it. But the impression I get with The Fountain is that people will either hate it or be kind of ambivalent. I’m ambivalent.
Yeah I’ve read a couple of glowing reviews to go along with the mostly tepid or lousy ones. But I think those will remain exceptions. This is going to be a hard movie for anyone to love. Ironic since love is one of it’s core elements. That and death. In fact it’s hard to know which of these Arranofsky himself is devoted to. Love or death. To some extent he’s made a sometimes turgid paean to death that in its exuberance in attempting to embrace it and help us to not fear death, seems more likely to have been fashioned out of a desperate fear of it himself.
That would be fine if it didn’t seem like one of it’s central themes is in coming to terms with death and realizing its not final. But in crafting a story that uses ancient archetypes of death avoidance like that of a tree perpetually renewing-a theme going back to fertility and agricultural worship motifs, playing right on through the Ash Tree of Nordic myth and Jesus on his cross shaped tree of wood-and the archetype of the eternally running fountain, Arranofsky certainly seems to be expressing a hopeful vision of the most feared thing in creation.
There’s even some Buddhist imagery as well as some transcendental touches in the films future vision that suggests breaking through to a greater understanding or awareness.
But none of it convinced me that Aranofsky or all those he borrowed from, are onto something.
Which isn’t necessarily his job as a filmaker. One thing this film does share with 2001 is in moving towards a sort of renewal. 2001 keeps this a bit more universal as he dehumanizes individuals, but it does suggest some sort of evolution of the spirit or mind of mankind. The movie doesn’t prove any of that. But it leaves room for interpretations that can range as far along the scale of believability or mysticism as you’re comfortable with. The Fountain certainly leaves room for interpretations too. I am not in anyway sure of what I just saw on that screen. There’s alot there up for debate and exploration upon further viewing.
I’m just not sure I want to see it again.
I’ll probably have at least one more viewing in me on DVD months from now to try and get a better grasp and see how it holds up. The movie was engrossing. At least for me. A group of people actually got up and left halfway through the movie where I saw it and another girl was in and out of the theater with her cell phone so much it was clear she was just killing time waiting for her boyfriend who seemed to want to stick it out or at least get his money’s worth. Me, I was riveted. I’m not sure why though. Was it my expectations or something there in the film that meant more to me in the sum of its parts than the full version?
I’m not sure because those parts were less than compelling while still being interesting. Maybe I need to coin a new term for this kind of film. It’s obtuse and compelling. Obtelling? Comptuse?
Solaris would be a film I’d put under that label. That too was Comptuse. It was also boring. Boring and interesting. Boresting.
Anyway, those parts consist of basically 3 milieus. 15th or 16th century Spain and the new World, somewhat modern period that’s possibly a bit in the future and that is the main ground of the film, and a far off future with Hugh Jackman travelling to a nebula in a round and transparent conveyance that looks like a dessicated snow globe.
The only part we’re sure is real is the modern area where most of the “action” takes place. One of the problems for alot of people is going to be in its non linear interspersing and shuffling of the three periods. Say what you want about how pretentious and arty you might think 2001 is but it was a straightforward story laid out in an encompassing linear progression. The Fountain is more Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind meets Donnie Darko and have a dyslexic child who does acid and likes going to the art houses of the moderately talented as a way of rebelling against its parents.
Or something.
As alluded to above there is also doubt about how real the past and far future segments really are. Jackman who plays Tommy, is married to the dying Izzy played by Arranofsky’s wife Rachael Weisz. She has apparently worked some of her death issues out working on a book which is apparently where the Jackman as Conquistador and Weisz as Queeen Isabella stuff take place. It deals with Mayan myths regarding a tree of life and has some scenes and symbols I’m not going to pretend to have figured out though they are not as complex as that makes them sound. [image:201:l]
Nor will I throw my theories on what that whole period was about and how it relates to the other segments. I’ll just mention that the Mayans apparently thought the dead went to a nebula they called Shambala and identified in the Orion cluster. One illuminated from within by a dying star. This is where future Jackman in his plastic bubble is headed.
All of this takes place under the guise of profound love and a desire to keep Izzy alive.
That’s also all I’ll say there for now as far as plot points go.
But I have to comment on the nature of this angle as well as the death and rebirth one I’ve already mentioned.
Viewing this movie as a love story between Tommy and Izzy contributes to it falling short for me. Sure love is grand and all but how many mature people who have lived and loved really think love is this everlasting ideal anymore? We go through couplings and get over it when they’re over. It’s a nice feeling to have but there is plenty of evidence it’s in large part a poetic expression of lust and genetic imperatives meant to legitimize and elevate it over other bodily functions. True some people have it more fully and deeply than others. They have my jeolousy. But Arranofsky goes a long way to aggrandize the feeling that no matter how hard he feels for Weisz now, will almost surely let him down and lead to another inevitable divorce one day.
Ok that is a bit cynical. But it’s also likely. Feelings fade and very few couples, if any, love each other in a deep and passionate way forever.
That out of my system it does have a different interpretation if one chooses to look at the film and its characters as more of an archetype. Arranofsky likes those and tries to keep his characters from becoming too personal. So maybe Tommy and Izzy are Man and Woman. In that sense the love or whatever that binds us together will go on forever. At least as long as humanity anyway. In that sense the puching back of death is our eternal struggle.
And like I said this could be viewed more as about love of death and acceptance as a timeless love that Tommy feels for Izzy.
Except that it’s possible death is conquered in the movie.
Alot of all this depends on how how you view the final future segments as well as the final bit back in our time more or less, and how that fits in with the concept of Izzy’s book and her desire for it to be finished. But between needing another viewing to figure it out and nobody having seen this yet, discussion on that topic will have to wait.
Another element that was rumored to be strong, and indeed people have commented favorably on even when in overall negative reviews are the visuals. 2001 told much of its story visually and The Fountain was supposed to do the same thing. And it may very well have attempted to do so. But it doesn’t work as well. First off the imagery isn’t all that special. When 2001 came out is was unique trippy stuff to see on the big screen. The future segments here, though being lauded by many, seemed pretty pedestrian to me. In this day and age of offhand cgi technology I just wasn’t impressed. I’ve seen visuals as good on episodes of Farscape.
I’m not saying these segments weren’t still interesting to look at. But I don’t see them being as compelling as some do. They certainly will not become as iconographic as Kubrick’s. Or Battlestar Gallactica’s for that matter.
But if you’re not the typical moviegoer this is worth a look. I’m already starting to want to see it again. I just don’t want to pay to do so. That might tell you something. For all this movies warming to death, if that is indeed what it is doing, I’m no less afraid of it and what is more to the point I feel like Arranofsky is no less afraid. I get more of an impression of a director who has suffered loss and is creating his religion in film to help deal with it. A man whistling in the dark much like Clint Eastwood’s William Munie in The Unforgiven who kept saying that he was changed and not like that anymore thanks to his dear departed, over and over, trying to make himself believe it. Right up until he shoots everyone in sight.
After having had a day to absorb The Fountain I’m feeling the desire to see it again.
There really is alot there to consider and analyze as far as interpreting certain things and I want to see some of those missed elements and lines to steer me in one definitive direction or another.
The ring. The seed. The sequence of events in the final minutes. All are interesting and a testement to a though provoking film made by a director with balls enough to attempt something different.
It doesn’t change the fact that it’s overarching themes (at least the ones I’m aware of after 1 viewing) don’t quite connect with me as true or hopeful.
A good movie nonetheless that will have to be given time to place, properly define, and to decide how good, bad, or mediocre it is. One can make an argument though that if you have to work that hard to like a movie maybe it’s just not that good.
On the other hand I hated 2001 the first time or 2 I was it as a teenager.
First, I must get some thing off my chest. No not my manly man boobs. I have noticed for quite some time that my ability to write has been userped by some evil force and simply removed from my sign on screen. To quote the second in order and effectiveness Fly, “It bugged me.”
But there is not better place to comment on this film than as a comment on another fine review from the Dude. This movie was awesome. Now as the Dude reads this he will be a bit shocked if he remembers at all my original stance at it’s trailer that resembled a film script i wrote about 2 years ago. I was not unmoved to anger to use as many words as possible.
But i was in a bad place and to actually “see” the movie changed my mind. I will not leave this as a review since actually writing is a luxury i am no longer afforded on this site and any such review will have to be seen elsewhere. But instead i will touch on some of the Dudes issues and spin a few of my own, starting the story telling.
The film is told in a non linear form like many Japanies films and other great American films like 21 Grams. But it is worth pointing out that while the opening scene, academicaly concidered the most important part in a film, means little in the story but is monumental visually setting up the conflict of the central character. Melt away the Incan warriors and the stupid Conquistador hats and you have a man fighting to keep his love alive relying only on courage. So opening with that, i disagree at the notion that visually the film tells little of the story.
If the story of this film where told as a thesis statement, it would be; man tries to save his love from the disease killing her. And that is all the film is about. That is it. No more. Good night you princes of Main, you kings of New England. Sure he loves his wife but no more or less than anyone else. The story as it appears on screen is simply a euphamism for hope. A hope to be cured, or to live forever after death. A hope to save the woman you love. All of those hopes are wrapped up in a nice little novella that Izzy has been writing. One obvious idea is that by having Tom write the ending she is asking him to keep her in his memory as well as write himself into the book solidifying some kind of imortality. That is where the reality ends.
Tom starts to read the book and realises that she has romanticized her death with queens and knights and created the hope of imortality by adding in the Incan mysticism that she had been studying. Read closer and he finds that she mentions the tree that Tom had been working on in the lab, but makes it a tree of life. It becomes a metaphore for the thing that will bring her life. The other major metaphore is in the imortality piece. Tom reads that he is an imortal warrior protecting her through time. But remember that he had precious little time to spend with her and was chided for it throughout the film. Could it be that she was making there relationship what she wished it was. Izzy must have recognised how hard he was trying but also could see that he was not around.
You must see where i am going with this. The fountain, her book, is the fictiscious auto biography of her death. It was all a hope of a dying woman to live forever. The clincher is when Tom writes the ending. The ending is his futuristic trip to the nebula. Again the entire piece is told visually. The snowglobe shows his loneliness and the tree is her or what has grown from her after he plants the seed at her grave. Understand that if this is all true than the fountain is based on some truth in the real world. Tom plants the seed after Izzy tels him the story from her childhood. So in the story it makes sense that a tree from such a seed would be apart of her.
This all brings us to the ending. The ring, the tree and that weird yoga shit where he flips around in that Budist orange thing. In the Incan myth that he based his ending on the first father sacrifices himself in a kind of natural reincarnation and creates the circle of life, seed to tree to seed. That is all represented by the ring that he carried through the film. Like in marriage, the ring represent the never ending circle. Tom could not find his so he made his own.
All of the key points in this interpretation of the film rely soley on the images on the screen. This is the first film i have seen in a long time that kept my eyes on the screen and told me the story through them. It is a hrad film to watch and hard to appreciate but it is worth it. Arranofski did not tell a sappy unattainable love story, he told the story of a man and wife telling the love story they simply wish they had. He had grey characters that lacked, but tried to fill the gaps with a lofty poetic love letter to eachother. It works to me.
“writing is a luxury i am no longer afforded on this site and any such review will have to be seen elsewhere.”
Why and where?
Will comment on rest at alter time. Too tired. Got you messeges but was in city all day and got back late.
Just a quickie before i go to bed on the imagery. I ws commenting more on the technical prowess and whoa quality on them rather than content. The content is still more aligned to the text of the script to me than it was in 2001. The visuals in 2001 told the story. Here they walked with it more. Nothing wrong with that. Just pointing out the difference for me and that I wasn’t ooohing and ahhing at the visuals though I’ve recently done so over episodes of Farscape and Heroes. They weren’t that unique and in fact looked like stuff I’ve seen somewhere. Particularly speaking of the future segment.
Like you interpretations of all the symbols and emotional issues and themes and such. More later.
I do not understand the where question and as far as the why? I do not know.
I signed on aroud the time of your confessions of a Mets fan II and found that i no longer had the option to write. Again, the why and where are mysteries to me as well.
For some reason i am shocked at your prioritising visuals of Heros and Farscape. Correction, not so suprised at Farscape. They even blasted Star Trek out of the water, or space for that matter. The Trek was more or less washed out mattes and a lot of sparks.
But Heros…..? Must discuss.
Well hopefully Bob can fix your problem on tech side. I had no idea you were having an issue there.
Heroes: I didn’t have time to specify and distinguish why I chose Farscape and Heroes. Farscape was indeed for the obvious reason that I just think they had effects taht were better than the ones in The Fountain.
For Heroes I was getting more at the scope of their shots and the way that imo they have created some memorable visual moments like Claire on the morgue table with her chest open and Hiro walking in front of the moving truck and pulling the girl out of the way while playing with airborne objects. Alot of stuff like that looked great but also had a certain comic book scope to them that for some reason stick in my head. upon 1 viewing the imagery of the Fountain doesn’t do that for me.
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THe movie itself: THough I agree with the idea that only the middle story is real there is an interpretation in which the latter is really happening. While no one in their right minds believes the early stuff is anything but Izzy working it out in her book, and I don’t think the future stuff is real either, the present time discovery of a cure a little too late does lend itself to a possibility that he has conquered death as he hoped to. But instead his eternal life has become a dry nightmare without Izzy and he is being haunted by her as he is on the snowglobe.
When he learns to let go of life and surrender to death only then has he learned from Izzy and I guess can theoretically know love again or release at least.
Of course it’s hard to imagine a reality even 500 years in the future where transaprent bubbles act as conveyances to distant nebula. But then it’s hard to imagine virtual immortality and cessation to most diseases which the film implies Jackman has found.
Obviously we’re not dealing with literal stuff here and I think your interpretation is correct, if any can be said to be in a film like this.
As I mentioned in review and initial comment after it, while I was underwhelmed I was riveted by the movie and I do find myself wanting to see it again more and more as time goes on. I’m not sure that will make me like it anymore but it might help me appreciate and understand it more.
Whatever I think about it it’s more interesting than most of the drivel that’s available over the course of a given moviegoing year.
Nobody tells me anything…
Brandonicus, in your user settings, I have you listed as an Administrator (I think you used to be listed as Editor, so I’m not sure if The Dude tried to fix this). Can you e-mail me with a detailed message of what the problem is? Just what error or denial message you’re getting, if you are still getting one.
AB