Beautiful and enigmatic

Rating: Null/10 (24 April 2014)

Darren Aronofsky is an unconventional film director whose work is always provocative but not invariably successful. By the time I got round to viewing his 2006 offering "The Fountain", I had viewed five of his movies. I was impressed in different ways by "Requiem For A Dream", "The Wrestler" and "Black Swan", less happy with "Noah", and put off by "Pi". "The Fountain" is definitely worth seeing - an innovative work which he wrote as well as directed.
It tells three stories across vastly different time periods: a Spanish conquistador in a Mayan civilisation on a quest for his queen, a contemporary scientific researcher struggling to keep his wife alive: and a future space traveller in a bubble with a tree on the way to a dying star. The three tales are introduced briefly and enigmatically at the very beginning of the film and only as the work unfolds do the meanings and connections become apparent, strengthened by the repeated appearances of the same actors Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz.
This is a philosophical work about love and loss and about mortality and immortality that is beautifully composed and shot with a limited budget eliminating the use of any CGI. It is not totally comprehensible but it is thought-provoking.