A not-quite-realized Dream

Rating: 7/10 (28 May 2009)

Aronofsky's "The Fountain" is a truly visionary work which no other director living today could have imagined and pulled off. It's a staggering film to behold, bursting at the seams with ideas and motifs and references to history, philosophy, and religion.
Unfortunately, it never quite adds up to a sum of its parts. Although the photography is beyond fantastic and Jackman and Weisz commit completely and, in Jackman's case, almost heroically to their parts, the film is just stuffed too full for its slim 96 minute runtime.
Aronofsky tells 3 stories in that runtime, at least two of which probably deserve their own 146 minute films. As a result, the historical tale of a Spanish conquistador, which is treated as an epic tale of obsession and madness gets maybe ten scenes in the final product. It feels incomplete, a sketch or maybe an annotated telling of something meant to feel much more intense. The main, and arguably the only "real" storyline, set in present day, feels complete but almost painfully sparse. There's just barely enough time to tell the story, let alone flesh it out. The third "sci-fi/fanatasy" story is complete and perhaps the most satisfying of the three universes, but can't really augment its sister stories which aren't all there in the first place. As such, it feels like a subplot which is stealing much-needed time from the main plot(s).
Now, this is arguably not Aronofsky's fault. The budget for the film was essentially cut in half from what he originally wanted, down to 35 mil. The film, though always impeccably photographed, looks like it cost about 100 mil sometimes (the space parts), while at other times looking a bit cheap and chintzy, with some sets obviously dressed and lit to hide their cheap construction (some of the modern-day parts and a couple jungle scenes). This has the unfortunate effect of occasionally taking you out of the reality of the story, and reminding you that you're watching a film. The film is constantly struggling to be epic... but settling for the best it can offer. Which sometimes means little, sparse sets and sequences have to try and pretend to be big and elaborate, with varying degrees of success and low lighting.
When a director of Aronofsky's ambition is forced into this sort of limitation, you've gotta believe that a lot was lost. Whole scenes, whole subplots surely got the ax before the thing was even shot, and may more were probably lost in the editing room. There is a long an interesting scene where Conquistador Jackman considers assassinating a member of the Inquisition. It's the only real scene in the whole story that feels like it was not a 100% inarguably necessary scene to tell the bare bones of the plot, but I have to imagine there were more like it originally, which would have developed the story a little more fully. Likewise, there are a few tertiary characters (Ellen Burstyn's and Mark Margolis's being obvious examples) who get a scene or two but never really amount to more than plot devices. I'd bet heavily that the original script gives them more meaning and life. This mean that the whole thing feels uncomfortably truncated, zipping from event to event with no downtime for us to absorb the characters and atmosphere, or even the organic progression of a story.
In the end, even the leads get only a few small sequences in which to establish their relationship, which is absolutely key to the story's emotional core. Despite their honest efforts, they can only really build a kind of bland, general relationship out of their few scenes together (most of which relentlessly advance the plot and allow little time for the kind of detail which would make this work better). The film gets too obsessed with getting its story out in time, and forgets that we need to be able to invest in the characters and the world too, which is it's fatal law.
The Fountain is not a failure, exactly; its still full of interesting thoughts and images (most of which announce themselves pretty unsubtly) and it certainly is a more creative and ambitious film than just about anything else you'll see. Tragically, the constrains of reality and the complexity of balancing three compelling stories at once ended up damning it to the realm of the merely interesting, rather than the truly great. Which is a shame, because it comes so close; it feels like one more permissive edit away from a true classic. Like a rough sketch waiting for the texture to bring it home. Maybe a director's cut will get it there, if one exists. But maybe next time Aronofsky says he needs money for a film, it would be wise to just let him do what he needs to do to make his masterpiece.