The Fountain: Heart-Breakingly Beautiful

Rating: 10/10 (17 October 2006)

I do not know how to sum this movie up in this review, and to try to would be an injustice to Darren Aronofsky's genius. So I will just state the facts. I saw this film at the Chicago International Film Festival. I was blown away. This movie is so original and so breath taking. There is only one word that I can use to describe it: BEAUTIFUL. Darren Aronofsky is a genius and the greatest film-maker of our time. He is a visionary, and one of the greatest script writers. Hugh Jackman's performance ranks among the greatest male screen performances in cinema history. Rachel Weisv is amazing, as is Ellen Burnstyn, and Sean Patrick Thomas. Clint Mansell teams up with The Kronos Quartet and the Scottish rock band Mogwai to bring us some of the most beautiful and epic music I have ever heard. Matthew Libatique's cinematography is breath taking. It is so simple, yet so effective and so amazing. Jay Robinowitz deserves special mention here because the movie is so well put together it flows, and as an editor myself, I can understand how hard that must have been. The three time lines weave in and out of each other flawlessly. This movie is so good I need to see it again in order to catch all of it, but this taste will be enough to sustain me for another month, when I will surely see it four or five times. This movie is about themes bigger than you can possibly imagine, and it will take some thinking, and it is genius. In my opinion, the best movie I have ever seen.