Om

Rating: 7/10 (10 July 2011)

OK, try to start with a positive: Aronofsky's Fountain was a much better film than Aronofsky's Requiem For A Dream. He always seems to be straddling the line between arty indiscipline and sincere message, and to me usually falling between both points.
Grief-struck surgeon's wife is dying in the present, meanwhile accidentally saves tumour-ridden monkey's life with extract from Tree Of Life, while man and metaphor get mixed up with storyboard inclusions from the past and future. Well made, sometimes messy, but with some astoundingly deft emotional imagery, a laudable refusal to use cgi cartoonery and reasonably believable acting by the main characters played by Jackman and Weisz, it moves swiftly to the confusing finale. And with eye-cutting cinematography. Nearing the various ends you can only hope for the last pieces of the jigsaw, however none are given, but "everything's OK" anyway. It's arty all right, but personally true Art has to make some/any kind of sense for an afterlife – this will probably join the heap of stuff that is interesting and gorgeous to look at but ultimately fluffy and superficial. On the comparable thematic level I'd lump it with Buster Keaton's forgotten Three Ages – no one digs that out nowadays, and only dedicated film historians would look up Griffiths' Intolerance. The Spanish story reminded me of a true Art film, Hertzog's Aguirre. It's only going to be a Revelatory Experience for the young, inexperienced, heavy or intoxicated, the rest of us have too many problems. I eagerly compared notes with my daughter - but (thankfully) she was as confused and much less impressed than I was. We're dealing here with a fantasy that strives for authenticity but apparently with Mayans who speak Mayan with English subtitles and with Spaniards who speak English fluently. Those dazzlingly sparkling images of Weisz's full face as the Spanish Queen are the money shots!
I enjoyed it to a point simply because I don't think that there is a point – it's a romance with lots of panache and dignity and very little swearing, sex and violence, which are always bonus points in my unfinished book. I can enjoy a Mars bar without having to know its chemical composition. He's a markedly talented director so I expect Aronofsky will one day eventually make a meaningful movie without trying so hard to be something completely different.