Love It Or Hate It Movie . I Hated It !

Rating: 3/10 (15 September 2009)

Last year someone went to the time and bother of burning Darren Aronofsky's THE FOUNTAIN on to a DVD to give to me . There's something very flattering when another human being does something for someone , if only to gauge their opinion . Unfortunately neither my DVD player or PC was able to play the DVD so that my viewing pleasure was scuppered . Luckily THE FOUNTAIN was broadcast on Filmfour tonight so made a point of watching it . With hindsight both my DVD player and PC did me a favour because the film is pretentious uninvolving nonsense
I had seen one of Aronofsky's previous films PI a couple of years back and found it very flawed . That was a film full of striking images but Aronofsky showed himself to be a film maker who sacrificed narrative drive for imagery . THE FOUNTAIN carries on in the same flawed style except it's even worse as it's trying to tell three story threads at once and failing to do any of them justice . What makes this even more unforgivable is that at the heart of the film is a theme of eternal love . A love story doesn't have to mawkish or corny , SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE is a great example for instance , but I was never engaged by the on screen events . A medical researcher tries to find a cure for his dying wife . Should have tugged at my heart strings just a little - it didn't
The much hyped cinematography and incidental music didn't do anything for me either . In fact I found them both irritating and intrusive . The silhouette of Thomas blocking out a star scape background did impress me but apart from that Matthew Libatique tries too hard to have an impact upon the audience . Cinematography should be a visual supporting character not the main star . Likewise if you're watching a film and you notice the score you should be thinking " Oh what beautiful music , it really enhances this scene for me " not " For goodness sake will someone please tell that bloke to get off the violin because it sounds like someone scraping their nails down a blackboard "
There is also a philosophical aspect of which you will shape an opinion on THE FOUNTAIN and that is - " Do you want to live forever ? " In my opinion no . Why would anybody want to ? Total eternity full of existentialist angst at the unfairness of life , of having doing things you don't like , of rejection and alienation and watching pretentious drivel masquerading as cinema . Total oblivion for the rest of eternity will suit me fine