Searching for Eternal Life

Rating: 8/10 (6 February 2007)

Death as an act of creation and new birth. Death as the road to awe. Life that is eternal and immortality that already exists. Not themes you generally find going on in a major motion picture with A-list box office stars leading the way, but this love child of writer/director Darren Aronofsky hits them all and then some. It is spiritually significant cinema at its most beautiful, most touching, and most thought-provoking.
Hugh Jackman (Tom) and Rachel Weisz (Izzi) take us through the death process asking the time-old questions about life and death. Is this human life all that there is? How hard should we fight to continue living in a mortal body? Is death to be feared or is it just another step on an eternal journey? Biblical themes of Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Life, and the Maya creation legends of The First Father who gave his life to create the world are interwoven throughout the three different but inexorably linked story lines. It may be a tad confusing for the inexperienced in spiritual cinema, but for those ready for the challenge it is an amazing adventure.
I've never bought into the idea that death is like a proverbial ax falling  that God is waiting to pass judgment on us and consign us to heaven or hell based on our spiritual understanding at that second, or our deeds in life up to that moment. I know many religions teach this and that Jesus talks about those things in the Gospels. But most of what Jesus taught about was in figurative language, and I believe that is what he was doing there too.
And who knows how those teachings have been warped over the centuries through mistranslations and purposes of creed and doctrine? Whole books have been written about that. My leanings are more toward Jesus' teachings about eternal life. It isn't heaven or hell ... it's just more.
I've heard it said that death is not the experience of the person, just the conclusion of the onlooker. Those still standing in the human experience of life find what they knew of as that person to be gone. But the spiritual reality of the situation is that their friend or family member is just as busy going forward with their life as they were when we could see what they were up to.
There's an amazing little article called "The Passing of the Seagull," originally published in the Christian Science Monitor newspaper in 1927. It equates death with watching a seagull fly effortlessly through the sky until it passes from our line of vision. It is no longer part of our life-experience, but nothing has changed for that seagull. It is soaring on and on  even though our limited sense of material vision cannot follow it.
Under the marginal heading "true life eternal," spiritual writer Mary Baker Eddy says: "Life is eternal. We should find this out, and begin the demonstration thereof. Life and goodness are immortal. Let us then shape our views of existence into loveliness, freshness, and continuity, rather than into age and blight." ("Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," p. 246)
While I, with Weisz's Izzi, am not interested in dying tomorrow, I don't fear it in the slightest. God is not waiting to take me. Life is already one with God. I don't need to go anywhere to get closer to divine Love.
Just turning the corner on 40 next month, I would fight valiantly for more years here, but I have no interest in being injected with anything or consuming anything that will continue life in this human experience eternally. My purpose in life is to do good and learn the spiritual lessons that will continue to bless me on my eternal life journey. This continuing nature of spiritual life is what Jackman's Tom is struggling with (at an Oscar-worthy level)  and what we all wrestle with in our own way from time to time.
Metaphysically, spiritually speaking, human life is nothing more than a dream that we create with our own thoughts, and someday we will believe that we pass out of this dream through death. But then we will find that the spiritual truths of the universe and our divine existence as God's children have remained untouched.
Then another adventure begins, and hopefully we have matured and progressed  gained grace, as "The Fountain" says  enough to move forward into more light and harmony than we find in this mortal dream.
I'm not sure if Darren Aronofsky would agree with me on all that, but I left his movie thinking that he just might. Again, this is not a movie for cinematic sissies. Leave the teenagers at home, unless they are already pretty advanced in their spiritual journey or you are ready to do some explaining during and after this movie. But if you look forward to films that will challenge you to think and explore the nature of life and your place in the universe, don't miss seeing this on the big screen in all of its glory.
Don't try to analyze this film or overthink it. It's not important what every single specific moment represents (though I can't wait to watch the DVD with Aronofsky's commentary on). Just let it flow over your consciousness and see what questions it brings up for you. That's the joy of truly spiritually significant cinema.