The Road to Awe

Rating: 10/10 (11 May 2007)

The Fountain is a great movie, definitely one of the greatest movies of last year. It's a shame it didn't get the appreciation it deserves, and it's destined to become, like many other great movies, an underrated cult-classic.
Despite all the difficulties encountered during production, Darren Aronofsky managed to realize a superb movie, a unique experience which you can't really say if it's a love story, a sci-fi movie or a psychological one. The style of the movie is clearly different from the psychedelic one of Pi and Requiem for a Dream. The casting is also great, this is Hugh Jackman's best performance yet, Rachel Weisz makes it clear once more that she is a talented actress and she deserves her Oscar, and Ellen Burstyn although she doesn't have the complex role from Requiem, she still manages to pull out a good performance. In some way, I think the current cast (Weisz and Jackman) have done a better job than the originally intended Pitt and Blanchet would have.
The images are stunning, and so is the overall cinematography of the movie, especially the scenes in the future. Another admirable thing is that Aronofsky, despite preferring not to use much CGI, managed to realize incredible imagery with cheap and traditional methods. Also, the soundtrack is mind dazzling and superb, Clint Mansell once again proving that him teaming up with Aronofsky really does pay off.
As it treats quite difficult and philosophical subjects such as the eternal and transcendental status of love, the importance of life and death as an act of creation, the movie can be quite difficult to understand and requires several re-views in order to fully be understood. But this doesn't imply that it's a bad movie, and the contrary  that it's a great and intelligent one. To a certain extent it can be said that it's a symbolical movie, a visual poetry if you like.
Another thing that makes The Fountain so good is the fact that each person can have its own understanding of the movie. And that is why the whole movie is so abstract and confusing, so each one can develop his/her own explanation of the whole plot, according to his/her personal beliefs.
Overall, The Fountain is definitely a great movie, one of my all-time favorites and not only do I recommend you to see it, but I suggest that after you see it for the first time, you should see it again, as you really get to understand it better after a second viewing.