Aronofsky is such a funny guy

Rating: 3/10 (6 July 2008)

I'll give this two stars for the beautiful set and the fact that there was actual effort involved, and one star for the fact that it is unique in presentation. However, this is one of the most unwatchable things I've ever seen.
"Daronofsky" has a pretty poor track record at this point. His first flick, "Pi", seemed watchable when I was a young, easily influenced, angsty teenager. Looking back on it today, even that film does not hold up so well, as Aronofsky movies parade style over substance while being totally oblivious to the fact.
The next flick he did, "Requiem For a Dream" (featuring Jennifer Connelly, yowza!) was the most glorified, pretentious movie about drug addiction put to film. I always knew drugs were bad (eh heh heh...) but I never knew they could be so stylish! His film editing in his first two films is like MTV-meets-Tarantino except without the "Gilmore Girls"-on-steroids writing found in the latter. On the surface, his movies appear to be about profound things (Kabbalistic math, drug addiction, death and spirituality, Jennifer Connelly) but then you realize that he has nothing to say on these subjects. He just keeps flashing subject-related images with minimal, cryptic dialog and melancholic or ominous music. What sorcery!
Which brings us to "The Fountain" a film purportedly abandoned by production companies and so forth because they thought it was too risky. I think their assessment was still rather generous. I think it's just plain bad. Here, for the third time, Aronofsky has proved himself to be an exclusively aesthetic director.
It's strange -- Aronofsky doesn't seem to understand that people have covered the same tragic/epic themes in better movies that also contained developed plots and characters. Someone here argued that the main characters are archetypes of the human experience. Whatever. I would say the same thing about the characters in Takashi Miike's "Izo" (also unwatchable but much more complete in its grasp) or "Children of Paradise", a film in which the characters manage to be simultaneously ridiculous, endearing and exaggerated and yet totally human. Children of Paradise is a masterful meditation on love and, unlike this one, has a sense of HUMOR. Considering the lack of jokes in his movies, I am convinced that Aronofsky is not only unprofound, but also a spiritual STATUE.
An example of the ridiculous pomp in this film: for some reason, Hugh Jackman randomly does Yoga and Taijiquan (Tai Chi) for brief segments. What relevance does this have to the grand human experience? Seriously, what of it? This is only relevant to people (like Aronofsky) who don't actually know anything about Yoga or Tai Chi. People who actually practice these things wouldn't advertise them as the pinnacle of human achievement in a movie about love.
"The Fountain" wants to be profound so very badly and yet just reeks of New Age yuppie pretense. You can critique anything and commend its artistic credibility and symbolism because: hind-sight is always 20-20! If you really thought this was deep, you just might be a New-Age yuppie. It's basically up there with "Mindwalk", "What the &($% Do We Know?" and any of the aforementioned films Aronofsky has done.
Proof that Aronofsky is no great writing/directing talent? He has no sense of humor. He should direct other scripts and stories. Then he might have something.