A Fountain of Meaning

Rating: 10/10 (22 November 2006)

I must say, there was more than enough buildup of anticipation to seeing this film long before it came out. Aside from the mesmerizing trailer that seemed to scream masterpiece, the conception of a modern re-telling of the story of the fountain of youth all but floored me. Walking into the movie theater tonight, I already knew that, whatever the outcome of the film, I knew I would enjoy its movie-going experience for the special effects. However, I never thought this film would be among my top five favorite films ever.
"You're either going to love it or hate it." the concession stand employee said to me before the show, which was the gist of how I characterized most intelligent or groundbreaking films.
At a span of 96 minutes that seemed like hours on end that I never wanted to stop, THE FOUNTAIN is a masterpiece of modern cinema by way of Darren Aronofski. It tells the stories of three seemingly different sequences simultaneously that, within the film's magnificent climax, become one with each other. Its lessons or messages are many and complex, requiring a heavy amount of pondering and thought for the intelligent movie patron, comparable to other legendary films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the recent CRASH. Which, perhaps is what the concessions worker meant. Those who find this film shoddy, repetitive and inconsistent simply lack the patience and capacity to think after a movie concludes. The average movie-goer demands explanations, answers and solutions to absolutely every concept within a movie, the audience member leaves confused, baffled and angry, blaming the movie for their feelings instead of humbling themselves to recognize their own lack of mind broadness and increased ignorance.
Films like these demand the viewer to think, as if the film itself is an equation offered to the audience to solve. The audience then conjures what THEY believe to be the rightful meaning of a movie, whether it is actually the one or not, or if there is a solitary one at all. Like good music, the listener is forced to conceive their own elaboration of a song or movie, which, when considered, few may want to.
This film is targeted at a specific genre of people: intelligent people. Films like these win awards while 2/3 of America disagree or rant that they've never even heard of the movie before. Will it receive #1 at the box office? Probably Not. Will it win an academy award? Perhaps. Will it be, in the short run merely forgotten only to be remembered by future generations? Perhaps.
Aranofsky examines a fact of life that can only be deemed ultimate and utmost, and that is the concept of life, death and the hypothetical hypothesis of living forever. For when we lose someone, we mourn for their absence and wish for the reversal of their death above all things. This film asks the question, what if you could live on? Perhaps its primary aim is to not only remind us that we would not want to live forever, but that, ultimately, we have to die, and that the death of anything means the birth and living of another, from the death of a person, to the sprouting of flowers.