Incredible, heart breaking love story

Rating: 10/10 (29 August 2007)

I fully understand that people would give this movie a bad review if they don't understand it. I'm posting this review to help them understand it and hopefully appreciate it more:
* SPOILERS BELOW *
The Fountain consists of 3 parallel stories that take place over 1000 years. The different time periods are not shown in chronological order and there is a reason for this which I will explain below.
1400's - Inquistions
Tomas is a conquistador searching for the tree of life so that queen Isabella, the woman he loves, will live forever. Eventually Tomas finds the tree of life and brings the sap back to Isabella where they live for 500 years until...
Our present day - ~500 years later
Thomas (Tomas) is searching for a cure for Izzy's (Isabella) brain cancer. He tries to use mixtures with the tree of life in order to save her but finds the cure too late and Izzy passes on. Using the story that Izzy relayed to him he plants a seed of the tree of life on Izzy's grave.
Future - 2500's (the hardest part to understand I think)
Thomas, quite possibly the last man alive, is traveling in a space ship carrying a seeded tree of life, the tree which grew over Izzy's grave. The tree has consumed Izzy's body and with it's powers allows him to communicate with her since he consumes it on a regular basis. It is no coincidence that he speaks to the tree exactly as he speaks to Izzy. There is a reason so much of the dialog is repeated. Aranofsky is trying to show you that she is part of the tree without completely spelling it out for you. Notice how it cuts from the body of the tree to Izzy's body.
The tree is dying and needs a great energy source to be reborn which he will get from Xibalba when it explodes into a supernova. This is Thomas's hope that by having the tree reborn, Izzy will be reborn in a way too. If the tree dies, Izzy dies again which is why he is so distraught when the tree doesn't make it (he failed both times right before the moment where he could save both and the overlapping future and present show this very nicely).
Thomas realizes with the tree dead, he will die too. This is another hard to understand part of the movie. The visions he sees of himself dying as he drinks the sap, etc are how he "finishes it"....finishes Izzy's story. He also finishes the story by in the present by deciding to spend time with Izzy instead of distancing himself from her while he tries so hard to find her cure.
Many people think the past and future did not really occur and are just allegories for his struggle with Izzy's death in the present, but I think once you understand the story it is quite clear they did. If you watch when he looks at the 500 tatooes on his arms (one for each year Izzy died), he asks Izzy to take him back so he can remember what he is trying to do. Likewise Izzy's book is their autobiography of the past, but Thomas has been too busy working to remember.
At any rate I think it is a very beautiful and simple story once you understand it. I'm glad that Aranofsky did not spell it out for everyone. It was nice to have a movie that didn't throw things in people's faces and allowed them to try and figure it out. I'm sure this isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I also see a ton of complaints from people when things are made too obvious. People are hard to please.