Bautiful Imagery holds a Beautiful Story stronger.

Rating: 10/10 (27 November 2006)

Some of the most beautiful imagery is brought together with an endearing story, that sums up the epitome of an ideally inspirational love tale. Written and Directed by the masterful Harvard graduate, Darren Aronofsky, The Fountain spans across three different time periods, with reoccurring theme of love and eternal life. This blossoming film becomes more and more entrancing as it continues to go back and forth between the three lover's, doomed to meet the same fate by the end of the film. Hugh Jackman plays all three male protagonists, while the ever-so gentle Rachel Weisz plays all three of the lovers. The third story, which takes place in the future, is the more complicated, and what will no undoubtedly drive most cinema goers away from this masterpiece. Set in the future, of which time we are not privy to, the third segment takes place in space and takes us along for a journey to a dying nebula. After many problems behind the scenes of this film, Aronofsky finally completed The Fountain and this futuristic segment without the help of modern computer graphics. Able to withstand the test of time, The Fountain will definitely achieve a larger following when released to digital video.
Accompanying Aronofsky in this endeavor comes long standing friend and musician Clint Mansell, who decided to work with the brilliantly epic Scottish band Mogwai, on this progressively haunting theme. Although the film has a short running time, of only 96 minutes, Aronofsky and his crew live up to their last two films. The Fountain is nothing like his last two movies, which used hip-hop sounds and fast-cut editing in a music video style. In this epic, Aronofsky uses more traditional style camera work, and allot of overhead shots, simulating satellite photography up-close. Unfortunately, The Fountains release will most likely go unnoticed whilst in theaters proving once again that Hollywood's better films usually tread far under the radar, until Oscar season.