The right way to be immortal !

Rating: 8/10 (11 July 2011)

Sometimes a movie is so good to the extent of not knowing how to write about it. (The Fountain) has many reasons to be one. But I think 2 pieces of info can provide an intro to speak easily about its beauty. The first is that its writer / director (Darren Aronofsky) loves classic movies. And the second is that he, as a teenager, spent time doing graffiti art.
Now this man could evoke a meaning about the importance of faith and accepting death as a step in life. It's where the awful clinging to life mirrors a wrong understanding of love. So lastly, thinking that he overcame death and reached immortality, the lead invented none other than a way to distance himself from his love for longer time. Hence he should surrender to death as fate that will re-gather him with his love; namely believe in the divine law. Clearly meanings like these have been lost in the Hollywood movies lately. You must remind the old classic ones, especially when it comes to faith. Then, the artistic vision of (Aronofsky). Oh my god. He could make a very sophisticated image yet in a lovely way. Aside from being good looking movie, it managed to be a book of signs, dealing with life, death, and love by symbolic forms, as if it makes its own artistic dictionary.
The chromatic personality of the film was precise. The brown and black for most of the events, as long as the desire for immortality is on, a dark desire for that matter. The golden yellow for moments like the drug's discovery; since it mirrors – in the film's conscience – a sick thirst to delaying death but ending it. The too glaring white for the true love or going to death. See also how the scenes of the husband and his dying wife are natural yet in a black frame or depth. Then, the green triumphs eventually, when the Spanish knight sees the fountain for the first time, however to assure that the immortality in life may be given for things, not humans (the nightmarish moment of the plants grow out of his body, burying him as the answer to his eternity).
While not having a huge budget in his hands, (Aronofsky), in a way that dazzled me personally, didn't use any CGI. Instead, he chose to do the special effects by using micro-photography of chemical reactions on tiny petri dishes. A very old way, but it worked, being no less than any more costly way. And most of all it didn't look fake, be hyped up, or feel made for itself.
The performance is sensitive and truthful. A scene like the one of the bath fascinated me indeed. Makes you somehow hate the action and comic movies that worn out stars, like (Hugh Jackman), (Rachel Weisz) or else, to a degree where true characters and feelings become rare to find, and the actor, inside of such stars, fades out !
The problem remains in the script's third act. It's confused. For instance, how come that the lead is the last man on earth ? He, one way or another, found a drug to lesson the ageing, however why there isn't any other human alive with him ? How nobody drank it but him since it must have been gone public ? Another, more dangerous, matter which is the 3 stories' meeting point. The line between the past's Spanish knight and the present's doctor was a bit blurred. Some would be pushed to think that they're one, not a fictional character / the knight in a book which the factual lead / the doctor completes. Anyway, something was rushed about that third.
By watching many of (Darren Aronofsky)'s works, I believe he has an obsession. Nearly all of his films are bout the human lust. The addiction, of drug and fame, in (Requiem for a Dream – 2000). The desire of being immortal in (The Fountain – 2006). And the complete opposite, yet the same extreme, in (Black Swan – 2010) where the lust is terribly suppressed. For him lust, without balance or real love, is a fertile source of horror. And the original maker of hell is the human self.
(Aronofsky) seems not interested in Hollywood blockbusters, so he directed only 5 movies in 12 years. While being not so smart choice from his side, which may change soon, he had a great opportunity to be interesting, different and unique with a few movies, I see that (The Fountain) is their most perfect yet, whether intellectually or visually.
An enjoyable thought-provoking film, with maybe the greatest message of them all. How many times you could say that about a film ? In a word : immortality can be won by work like this.