Art is not inherently "good" or "bad"

Rating: 9/10 (23 November 2006)

I had to view the The Fountain twice, because after a first viewing it was haunting my mind, and knew it would drive me crazy if I had to wait for the DVD release. I have decided it is brilliant in concept and in visual execution but flawed, in the sense of being so ambitious it comes apart at the seams. I can see that Aronofksy is melding many different elements and ideas here, even if the fit is awkward at times. At least there are real ideas, and a real aesthetic vision, which is more than I can say for 95% of the commercial garbage out there.
I think people have gotten it wrong in interpreting the message as some new age mumbo-jumbo. Certainly it is drawing from mythological sources, but the real meanings seem to lie more in the universals of love versus obsession, the struggle with mortality and the incomprehensibility of death. Then again, I am of the belief that spirituality has to do with the formation of meaning and needn't imply anything supernatural. And why should an empirical viewpoint preclude us from indulging in fantasy and allegory, especially at the service of exploring those things which make us human? As ridiculous as complaining that The Lord of the Rings is unrealistic.
I grant that it is not the kind of thing easily palatable to mainstream audiences, that people primarily see movies to be told a story and be entertained, not to view a piece of visual art or be required to (gasp!) think. While those are perfectly legitimate, and I also see most movies for the same reasons, the ones that really stick with me are, like The Fountain, ambiguous, disorienting, and even absurd on first viewing. But if I challenge myself to give them another look, they open up new possibilities to me. On the level of plot this film is extremely simple, even simplistic (even if the way it is told is extremely nonlinear and convoluted), yet on the level of interpretation it is multi-faceted, though I fear few will bother with that. Aronofsky took some serious risks here and such are the consequences of daring to follow one's own vision.
This is another example of why I hate film criticism (and the same goes for any other medium), because it prejudices people's perception before seeing something for themselves. I say when viewing this film try to forget everything anyone has said. You may love it, you may hate it, but neither of those reactions is right or wrong. This is art, not hard science.