An epic, gutsy, and cinematic masterpiece way ahead of its time

Rating: 10/10 (25 November 2006)

I went to see Darren Aronofsky's new film "The Fountain" the day before Thanksgiving. Knowing and seeing Aronofsky's two previous films, "Pi" and "Requiem for a Dream," I knew I was going to be intrigued and blown away again. It was in instinct that I had learned while watching his amazing films. From "Pi's" mysticism and kabbalah-stock market-mathematics-nature thriller vibe going throughout, and in "Requiem's" addiction-over-reality's grim tale of four interconnected people fighting the fight over the enemy known as addiction, I knew "The Fountain" was going to be Aronofsky's greatest hit to date. It took six years in the making, and has gone through several lead cast changes, from brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett to B-movie stars Hugh Jackman and Rachael Weisz, but Aronofsky finally finished it.
"The Fountain" is a low-budgeted sci-fi romance movie that spans over thousands of years. Starting from 1500 A.D., we start to view the story of a Spanish conquistador named Tomas (Hugh Jackman) who is sent by Queen Isabel (Rachael Weisz) to find the eternal tree of life. Cut to present-day 2000 A.D. Tommy Creo (Jackman, again), a modern-day scientist, and his wife Izzi (Weisz, again), a writer, try to save their relationship as man and wife. She is writing an epic story about the Mayans and Xibalba, a dying nebula in space that is suppose to be a symbol of death reborn, is most likely a metaphor for what her relationship with Tommy is like. Tommy quickly realizes that Izzi is beginning to show odd signs of cancer, through Izzi's loss of sensitivity to hot and cold and a seizure she suffers while browsing through a museum. While Izzi is on bed rest at the hospital, she realizes that she won't be ale to finish the book herself, so she asks Tommy to help her "finish it." Tommy agrees.
Using a special concoction (that is suppose to heal the cancer and make the person live forever) made by him and his medical research team at the research station (which he ultimately also used on a test monkey named Donovan), he thought he could cure Izzi forever. Unfortunately, Izzi dies before Tommy could get the cure to her. Cut to 2500 A.D. Tommy is now Tom Creo, an astronaut traveling through space in a special transparent sphere-like space ship with a tree in the middle (it resembles much like an ecosphere). The tree itself is the future Izzi. Through a series of story cuts and flashbacks to each time period, the movie itself unfolds and spits out pieces to the epic puzzle. And I cannot leave out the special effects  the effects were absolutely amazing in this film, considering Aronofsky used no computer generated images (CGI)  but micro-photography inside Petri dishes instead.
Eventually we see how Tommy finishes the story, if Tomas finds the tree of life, and if Tom can get Izzi to get "reborn." This is the thing about "The Fountain": If you are not the type of person who likes to ponder and try to solve the puzzling story (using logic) of the movie, you will not enjoy this movie. "The Fountain" is an epic love story that uses a great amount of logic in order for you to enjoy this movie. Most of the ending is up to you to decide what happened.
I give much kudos to Aronofsky for making a gutsy movie as such "The Fountain." Leaving the film in development hell for five years and writing a graphic novel from the original screenplay Darren had wrote (with co-writer Ari Handel) made it seem like the movie was dead. But that all changed when the graphic novel artist Kent Williams wowed Warner Bros. Pictures to revive the film. The movie is very much ahead of its time. A lot of people will downright hate it. A lot of people will regard the movie as an instant cult classic that should never be ignored. But one thing's for sure: "The Fountain" will be loathed from years to come. As Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" was to the 1900's, "The Fountain" will very much shape the future of the 2000's. I guarantee it.