Expects A Lot from the Audience

Rating: 10/10 (18 September 2006)

I was privilege enough to snag tickets to the Toronto premier. It was cool to hear from the "A" man himself, Clint Mansell, Rachel Weisz and Ellen Burstyn. Hugh Jackman had apparently committed himself to a stage thingy in Australia.
"I'm glad that this audience has a lot of film makers in it. I have a feeling this movie will strike a special cord with those in the art form. I made Pi and Requiem when I was a snotty little brat. Go into watching this with no expectations, clear your mind of the last two. This one is it" said Aaronofski.
The only expectation I had was that I knew it was going to be well put together and ironically, the story was so incredible that I found myself unable to pay attention to the craft. Ever watch a movie that you liked when you were younger and see nothing but all the mistakes the film maker made? Ever find yourself in the theatre being so understimulated that all you can do is pay attention to is the physical movie? This was not an option with The Fountain. After stepping out of the Elgin I couldn't even speak. My friend and I walked to the GO station in complete silence. This actually allowed us to listen to the conversations of other groups of people who had seen the movie. "Oh they had such a good story going there! Why did they have to ruin it?"
It seems that most people can't wrap their head around it. I'll try to review it without ruining it for you. The movie takes place in three separate stories about the main character, Tom Verde (Jackman). One takes place in modern day, another in Spain in the past and another in the far future. Each story presents a different angle on the character, giving you an incredibly profound understanding of what the he is going through. People had trouble understanding that the separate instances held an equal weight in the story as a whole. They saw it as a normal guy with two wacky art film sub narratives. Technically, it's a masterpiece. The imagery of stars saturated the entire movie. Every frame seemed to imbibe this golden glow. It's also kinda neat that I found out my sound teacher was lead on post audio, which also was complete led with incredible finesse.
My biggest fear is that this film goes unappreciated. Best Aaronofski yet in my opinion. Though I can say the only fault is has is that it expects a lot from it's audience. If you can't invest yourself in a film, you won't like this movie.