A meditation on mortality

Rating: 10/10 (22 April 2011)

"Whenever a profound experience of change is about to take place, its harbinger is the motif of death. This is not particularly mysterious, since it is the limited view and appraisal of oneself that must be outgrown or transformed, and to accomplish transformation, the self image must dissolve."- Lawrence E. Sullivan
Framed against the background of Mayan culture, its themes connected to the symbol of the Maya sacred tree, Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain conveys a simple message that may only become clear after a second or third viewing - that immortality cannot be won by living forever but is experienced only when one fully embraces death. This is what is meant in the film by Izzi Creo's often repeated refrain "Finish it." As author John Major Jenkins put it, "The message is that the specter of death does not have to breed fear, it invites, rather, a meditation on mortality and a fuller appreciation for life."
Spanning thousands of years in the relationship between Thomas (Hugh Jackman) and his dying wife Izzy (Rachel Weisz) and wrapped in a complex visual tapestry, The Fountain interweaves three different temporal levels. Along the way, the film looks at the nature of death, the search for enlightenment, and whether our true essence is human or divine. In each story, there is a quest for immortality represented by the symbol of the Tree of Life or the Fountain of Youth, but it is only in the end that the basic truth about death is understood. It is a beautiful work of art that received little appreciation when it first came out but has grown in stature over the years.
Film critic Joseph Belanger (Black Sheep Reviews) expressed the film's message in this way, "Aronofsky attempts to show in an hour and a half that we as humans are not of our bodies but that the soul, life and love are eternal; that the death of our physical bodies is both a natural and necessary part of what we know as life; that we should neither fear it nor fight it but accept it as peacefully as possible." The Fountain begins in 16th century Spain where a conquistador, Tomas is sent on a mission by Queen Isabella of Spain to find the Tree of Life in New Spain (South America) in order to stop an inquisitor named Silecio (Stephen McHattie) who is planning a coup against her.
Tomas must fight hostile natives to reach the top of the temple, the high priest telling Tomas that "death is the road to awe." In the present day, Tommy Creo is a research doctor who is experimenting on a monkey, using the bark of a South American tree to desperately try to find a cure for his wife who is dying of a brain tumor. Thinking she is going to die soon, Izzi leaves Creo an unfinished manuscript for a book she has been writing called 'The Fountain" about a conquistador's search for immortality in New Spain.
Because she wants her husband to realize the futility of trying to save her life, she tells him to "finish it." Ultimately, Tommy finishes the book with the conquistador dying, completing the cycle of his own life. In the third sequence, Tom is a 26th century Astronaut grieving over the death of his wife. He is traveling in a space bubble as he transports the dying Tree of Life to a distant galaxy that the Mayans identified as Xibalba, the home of the dead awaiting reincarnation. It is a symbol of his acceptance of both his wife's death and his realization that we should not spend our days trying to avoid death, but embrace it as a lover.