Darren's Masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (22 August 2011)

Well what can I say. When I first watched this film, I literally cried almost all the way through. It's a visual phenomenon and deserves far more recognition. It's a story of Tommy trying to cure his wife Izzie who is dying, but we see him in 3 different timelines: the past, the present and the future. I hate to pick favorite but Tommy in the future are the best parts of the film. He is portrayed as an astronaut on the way to Xibalba, the Mayan underworld which is a dying nebula which is shown on such a massive scale as a golden galactic whirlpool. What saddens me about this film is it's message, that death is inevitable. You see, throughout these timelines, Tommy is trying to save whom he loves. In his past, he is a conquistador trying to save his queen Isabel by finding the Tree of Life in a Mayan temple. He drinks from the tree and is buried alive by its roots. In his present, he is experimenting to find a cure, but works so much that he fails to see Izzie enjoying the last pieces of her life, and then she dies before he finds a cure. In his future, he is taking a tree to Xibalba (the tree contains the spirit of Izzie) but the nebula goes into supernova and explodes, killing Tommy; his ashes then fall gracefully onto the tree. The message given in this film is that death is not a cure, death is a curse and a gift and Rachel Weisz highlights the character Izzie with her amazing ability to see past the morbid aspect of death, and sees it as freedom. Izzie is not afraid of death, Tommy is. However, these 3 timelines are all entwined in some parts of the film, for example when he is a conquistador, he appears to the Mayan priest as the astronaut and at the end, when Tommy is burying present Izzie, he picks a fruit from the future tree. It all sounds very complicated, I'm sure but to understand, you have to watch. It's more than a film, it's a masterpiece riddled with Mayan culture, new age special effects and some deeply moving performances from Hugh Jackman as Tommy. The film itself, however, would be nothing without the amazing soundtrack conducted by Clint Mansell, especially in my favorite scene which is the end of the film: Tommy learns what death meant to Izzie, and how he cannot avoid it and so Izzie dies in every timeline in the film. The song is called Death Is The Road To Awe and it's so chilling yet passionate, that I had to look it up. 10 stars. Breath-taking film, highly recommend.