A lyrical and ethereal meditation on love and death!

Rating: 10/10 (24 November 2006)

The Fountain
Last night while I was watching "The Fountain" a large obnoxious crowd of young college students were laughing during powerful moments of "The Fountain", maybe they were to daft or ignorant to appreciate the genius of it, or just possible they went in expecting X-Men 4 or something, after the film ended and the credits were running they were criticizing the film and saying the most immature insults I think I ever heard in a movie theater. It then clicked to me that while that crowd thought they were superior to the film, Darren Aronofsky is already five steps ahead of them.
There are also apologies from film critics indicating that that "The Fountain" is too confusing, and complex. What the hell, are we getting to that level now where we have to apologize to audiences because a film isn't straightforward enough? Darren Aronofsky's bold and beautiful film "The Fountain", is quite negative on rottentomatoes.com at the moment, I feel as if the audiences have transformed and hi-jacked film critics. It may be non-linear, but it's quite a philosophical, ethereal journey of memory, loss, and regret.
Let's not forget such masterpieces as "2001: A Space Odessy", "Eraserhead", "Blue Velvet", "Peeping Tom", "A Clockwork Orange", and most recently "The Passion of the Christ", "The New World", were all poorly received by many critics in their release, but are now considered classics. If "The Fountain" admirers join together, and the elite critics stay together (Chud.com, Glenn Kenny from Premiere also loved it) and if the film receives a cult following it will reach that status.
It's been six long years since Darren Aronofsky has directed a film, and let me tell you, the wait is worth it. "The Fountain" in many aspects is like a sci-fi Terrence Malick film, the lyrical direction, the visual poetry, the inaccessible storytelling is all there. The result is a beautifully heartbreaking, visually sublime, hypnotic meditation of nature, love, and identity. It's a film where you avoid to make sense of it, and just surrender yourself with the rhythm and flow.
More of an experience, then a film; "The Fountain" will you leave you speechless from start to finish, and when it's over you'll be perplexed by the experience. Director Aronofsky, in his third film, is by far the most ambitious project of his career. In 1998 Aronofsky made the most explosive film debut since David Lynch's "Eraserhead". It was strikingly shot and artfully maddening film debut that put Aronofsky on the map. Aronofsky has always had sci-fi elements throughout his work; "Pi" invoked the paranoia of Franz Kafka within high-contrast black and white, within fuzzy framework. "The Fountain" like his other films are demanding works of provocation.
Aronofsky's second film was absolutely remarkable; "Requiem for a Dream" was an intense, and disturbing film that perfectly captured the horrors of drug-addiction. Aronofsky proved with "Requeim" that he was a first-rate filmmaker of intelligent ideas, subjectivity, and style.
Aronosky has done it again, his direction in "The Fountain" is nothing short of extraordinary. Like a Terrence Malick film, it transports you in a world of beauty, and despair. More of a film that relies on imagery, and visual storytelling instead of linear narrative, "The Fountain's" powerful imagery speaks for itself, Aronofsky philosophizes the process of life, death, existence, nature, reincarnation, and how true love and life can never decay.
Chronicling three centuries spanning from the 16th, the present, and 26th century, in the midst of 500 years separating each story. "The Fountain" is essentially a love saga; each story is a repetition of one man's passion, destiny, and love that lies in a tree of immortality. In the present story, Tom (Hugh Jackman) is a scientist in which is wife Isabel (Rachel Weisz) is on the verge of dying from a severe brain tumor. Tom struggles to find a cure out of a monkey that can save her life. Meanwhile in the 16th century a conquistador Tomas (also Jackman) is ordered by the Spanish Queen Isabel to voyage to the New World of South America to search in a Mayan temple that secures the everlasting fountain of youth, which is the tree of life where its later revealed that Isabel is writing a novel titled "The Tree of Life".
In the third and most visually stunning story in the future has Tom (Jackman) again as a bald, despondent longing and meditating in a bubble flying through space and cosmos with the decaying tree inside the bubble. Tom is on a voyage to a star named Xibalia where the Mayan's believe is a heavenly, gateway world of rebirth.
The sound of this might sound silly, or absurd, but it's ravishing. The multi-layered, meta narrative is actually balanced with its visual language. The use of camera angles, motifs, zoom/dolly outs, and saturated colors, Aronofsky astonishing direction perfectly creates the melancholy atmosphere. It's a visionary work, that is highly imaginative, lavish, and ambitious. It's going to be an overlooked classic in the making.
Aronosky's "The Fountain" has already been compared by a few to Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey", and rightfully so. In both audacity, and ambition, Aronofsky's vision is both cerebral and dazzling in execution. However, Aronofsky is more sincere, where Kubrick was more of a cynic. Overall with its poignant, and sentimental ideas of love and life, "The Fountain" is the ultimate fragility of hope.
Rating **** out of ****