Worth the Six Year Wait, Even if it Wasn't What I Expected

Rating: 8/10 (25 November 2006)

I just saw The Fountain last night in a tiny indie theatre and have not been able to stop thinking about it since. There is something truly haunting about this film. I started watching it, somewhat familiar with non-narrative films, but having never been so affected by one as this one affected me. The film provokes something very human out of its audience. I can remember being one of seven people in the audience (having had a full house in the beginning) and still watching the credits afterward, sharing a very similar strange sensation. It wasn't joy. It wasn't sorrow. It was just feeling a part of something that I can't explain, and I think the movie is something quite remarkable for being able to do that.
I don't particularly feel like commenting on the performances of this film or the visuals because that is all anyone has been talking about lately. Both are spectacular without a doubt, but what I would rather talk about is this very 50/50 split between people on this film. (Everyone loves controversy.) The critics in my opinion have been very harsh about the film's approach to the story and how they consider it incoherent. The Fountain is a film of its own narrative and a very original one at that, I would argue, so it is no wonder why audiences are divided, but the critics are people who should be used to this kind of thing if they are true movie critics. These people have obviously never been able to sit through a David Lynch film. The Fountain evokes a much more harmonious feeling through its non-linear narrative than any Lynchian film could, which is new for me. However, many critics (I'm directing this to those who submit to Rottentomatos.com) are calling the film too artsy-fartsy and accusing Aronofsky of being too pretentiously... Well, of course the film is pretentiously. It's art. Has our culture become so used to being spoon-fed basic plot narratives that we have grown an aversion to art when art is not necessarily coherent or makes us uncomfortable in some way? I am usually not one for the experimental narrative, but part of going to the movies used to be about seeing something you've never seen before... Well, I can't say I've seen anything like The Fountain quite before, so I consider it a success in my mind.
Don't go into The Fountain expecting a typical film, because it isn't that. It reads more like a poem than a film and I can understand why the average moviegoer would stray away from seeing something like that. The critics I am a bit more disappointed with, but hey! Tenacious D and The Pick of Destiny is playing too and that movie is very enjoyable if you'd just rather watch a movie and not think.