An anti-Christian interpretation of The Fountain

Rating: 10/10 (11 April 2007)

This late review (the movie have only just arrived in Danish theaters) takes focus on why I believe "The Fountain" have an anti-Christian message, and why I therefore believe it to be one of the most beautiful stories ever seen on the big screen. Enough is already said about the acting, musical score and special effects - they are all superb and completes the experience, but to me not the essential part of the movie. My eyes moisten with the pure beauty of - not just the love story between man and woman - but the story of the love of life itself. And at the same time I claim it to be anti-Christian - here is why:
Izzi is clearly fascinated by the myths of the old Mayan culture. The more she studies, the more of it she is applying to her own life. The crucial part is, where she tells about the underworld Xibalba, and death being the road to awe. You may want to note that there is no talk of an afterlife in Xibalba, but simply a place, where the soul go to die. The only afterlife-like part is the story of the seed growing upon the grave, and the bird eating the fruit. In other words, not an afterlife, but the life of those who comes after (trees, birds and eventually other humans). When Izzi reaches this conclusion, she finds herself ready to meet her upcoming death with peace, because life (of others) will continue. We live on in the memory of our children, so to speak - that is the "road to awe". It also explains her spontaneous and vitalized way of living, and why Tom is miserable. She continuously tries to make him understand her discovery, but he is busy trying to literally kill death, and therefore unable to live and to listen. I see that as an obvious message to the way of life in the Western world. We try so hard to extend life that we end up making the search replace living itself.
So naturally she is letting her story (the fountain) follow her newly-found revelation. Important is it to note that the representatives of the Christian faith in her story - both the Inquisitor and Queen Isabel - are striving for the Tree of Life as a way of gaining political power. A pursuit they both are failing. The way the Inquisitor is portrayed is quite clear - that part of Christianity have lost appeal many years ago, if it ever had one - but the failing of the benevolent Queen is revealed only at the very end, where the Conquistador fatally drinks the sap of the tree. Obviously, there will not be any eternal life for the Christians, simply because the myth of the Tree of Life from older religions (like the Mayan) is misunderstood in the biblical version. So my point is, that Christianity looses, because of its selfish search for power and salvation. Whereas the Mayan belief is beautiful, altruistic and selfless - Life is a one-time deal only. Live your life in the moment and your death will provide the basis for birth of future life.
Conclusively Tom Creo is getting the big picture, ironically after Izzi's death. The moment it happens is when, he realizes: "I am going to die". To no surprise, this comment is making (dream)Izzi smile. Simply because she is happy for him, now able to understand what she have tried to explain to him. He comes to peace with the fact that he one day will die too, and this isn't a tragedy, but the road to awe (and therefore he can turn his back on the laboratory and follow Izzi to a walk in the snow instead). At the same time he is now able to finish the book (the fountain). He has come to realize how the story must end. Izzi has started it in a setting 500 years earlier, so Tom can appropriately end it 500 years from now in the future. Ascending in his bubble, he is ultimately preparing to reach Xibalba - peace fills him. Upon arrival, his soul reaches its destination, and finally pulverizes to stardust. This is his ending of the book "the fountain", but we, the audience, is left to imagine the ending of his real life, when we leave him planting the seed on Izzi's grave.