Aronosfky the auteur

Rating: 7/10 (27 December 2006)

There is something going on here. If I were to say that I knew what everything in The Fountain is supposed to mean, I'd probably be a damn liar. That said, I feel that I got the general idea. Many people have compared this film's esoteric, pseudo-intellectual appeal to something like Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, but I think this is a wrong claim to make. There are many moments in the Fountain in which the story is too desperately being explained to us. Rachel Weisz is an amazing actress, but God bless her, half her lines in the movie feel like she's just spoon-feeding us important information. It took the joy away from a movie that should (though mostly does) communicate on an emotional level more than anything else. Even if you don't really know why, The Fountain has the ability to provoke some powerful emotions. Unfortunately, it does not do much else.
While watching the film, I sensed that Darren Aronofsky has become a director that believes in his own myth. People have called him one of the great contemporary directors, and now he has come up with this movie, which, at times, is just completely up its own ass. Fans of Aronofsky will no doubt love this and hail it as a triumph of the modern auteur.
If you were to remove the entire concept of past and future from the movie, you'd have a story of a man with a love so intense for the woman he lost, he would never, ever recover. Since we do get the other, more wondrous aspects to it, The Fountain becomes a more memorable, unique film, and has a beautiful sense of hope to it. It is a very one-sided love story though. It is mainly about Hugh Jackman's character's experiences. Aronosky's wife, the lovely Weisz, has to play a character who is never fully realized, and is degraded to an object of affection and goal for the main character, and someone who lays down all the important information to get the plot rolling.
I generally liked The Fountain, it had incredible visual effects that weren't CGI for once, it features a haunting musical score by Clint Mansell, good performances by Jackman and Weisz, and was emotionally hard-hitting. It's the the kind of film that just begs for repeat viewings, but it's honestly not as clever or deep as it thinks it is.
My rating: 7/10