Outstanding - I only wished there were more films of this quality

Rating: 10/10 (13 June 2011)

This film is full of nuance and is interwoven in such a way that makes it a feast for those who love to analyse, interpret and debate. But for those who prefer to forgo the puzzle aspect of a film, it is a lush experience first and foremost that doesn't need to be analysed to be enjoyed. But for those who can't resist the riddle, questions revolve around these points: how do Tomas the Conquistador/Tommy the oncologist/Tom the astronaut relate to one another? Are they the same guy? What about Queen Isabella/Izzi dying of brain cancer/Izzis' apparitions? Are these reincarnations? Are they parallel lives? What is "real" in The Fountain and what is imagined? On one level these questions could be said to miss the point. The whole film is by definition a work of imagination. Nothing in it is really "real". Some would say that what matters is the way the film affects the viewer, the impressions it makes, the thoughts and feelings it leaves you with. However let's be honest, on another level the film can be approached as a puzzle. So, looking at it as a puzzle, what is the solution to the previous questions? My own best take, having seen the film a few times, goes something like this. The film is about Tommy and Izzi struggling to come to terms with her death and its consequences for Tommy who will be left behind. Izzi manages to make peace with dying, but she recognises that Tommy can't. She has been writing a book called "The Fountain" about a Conquistador (representing Tommy) who wants to save his queen (representing Izzi) from tyranny (the cancer) by finding her the key to eternal life (Tommy's oncology research). The process of writing the book has helped Izzi come to terms with dying. It is also a final act of love in that she gives the book to Tommy to finish. Her wisdom is that by getting Tommy to finish the book the process of writing it can unite them one last time in their joint struggle to heal over Izzi's premature death. By struggling to finish the book Tommy may find the path Izzi found, out of despair and towards a sense of peace and awe (she once describes it as feeling "full, held"). So the "real" parts of the film are the scenes involving Tommy and Izzi that are set in the present. The scenes involving the other couples (Tomas and Isabella, as well as Tom and the apparitions of Izzi and Isabella) are from the book "The Fountain" that they co-write. The scenes from the book with the fictional Tomas/Isabella/Tom are essentially the working out of the struggle Tommy and Izzi go through to come to terms with loss and death. We can imagine that Izzi, being fascinated with the Mayans and Spanish history, wrote most of the scenes set in that era. We even see Tommy reading these scenes from her book. I think that Tommy, being a man of science, and essentially desolate after the loss of Izzi, wrote all of the Tom the astronaut story arc. Throughout the film we see Tom travelling towards the Xibalba nebula, trying to keep alive the tree which somehow carries Izzi's essence. Tom's journey, his struggle and suffering alone in space, haunted by the memory of Izzi, mirrors Tommy's journey of grief in the present. Throughout the film we hear Izzi say to Tommy/Tom to "finish it". This is her insistence to Tommy that he find a way to finish the book. Her faith is that when Tommy finds a way to finish the book he will find a way to make peace with life and death, love and loss. At the end of the film we see that Tommy recrafts the final scene Izzi wrote in the unfinished book to tie in with Tom the astronaut's quest. Initially mid way through the film the confrontation between the Mayan priest and Tomas the seeker of eternal life showed the priest ready to strike down the intruder. In the recrafted scene Tom appears as a floating enlightened being before the priest, and the priest recognises that Tom has "got it" – he is prepared to die to create new life. He is the "First Father" by virtue of this realisation. We then see that Tom reverts back to Tomas, who slits the priest's throat. I think this is Tommy writing out the Tomas character, who represents an earlier version of himself, when he was essentially unenlightened and is still "going after the gold" of eternal life, and is still resisting the fate that awaits him. Next, in eating the sap from the Tree of Life Tomas unwillingly is converted into foliage. This kind of mirrors the Bible where Adam and Eve try to cheat ignorance by eating from the Tree of Knowledge. I think this may be just to show the futility of going after eternal life and the consequences of trying to cheat death. We then see Tom going through a kind of transcendent death. We already know he embraces this because of this exchange between him and the Izzi apparition earlier on: Tom(joyfully): "I'm going to die!" Izzi: "Together we will live forever." Tom: "Forever." His passing gives new life to the tree he has been transporting and nurturing. This represents the universe being renewed. Tom and Izzi will together live forever but not by literally cheating death, but rather by reaching a higher understanding and by accepting their return to become a part of the where they came. This ties in with what Izzi tried to explain to Tommy earlier in the film about death being the road to awe. The final scene in the film, where Tommy plants the seed in Izzi's grave, shows that he has finally grasped the realisation that allowed Izzi to die in peace.