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Paddy C 
"Does not compute! Lame!"
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 Posted - 01/28/2007 : 20:04:50
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Anyone else seen this? 'Pi' is one of my all-time favourites, but this wasn't quite as good as that.. I imagine it will polarise people though, you'd either love it or hate it...
I think i loved it, but it's a total head-job.. 7/10 for me.
Full review here |
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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 01/28/2007 : 20:49:46
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Well, I guess I call it an ambitious failure:
Grief bubbles up in Darren Aronofsky's impressionistic The Fountain like the evanescent process it is, impossible to hold in one's hand, a renewable resource of pain that is connected by association to every aspect of the dead loved one. The director's attempt to externalize what is essentially a protracted, complex and
uniquely personal journey could probably never have wholly succeeded given the obstacles of the medium, yet [as in his previous work] he tackles it with courage and various degrees of vision. He's chosen to straddle three time-frames, loosely connected by the main characters of each, personified by Hugh Jackman and Aronofsky's off-screen partner Rachel Weisz. I suspect in coming years the film won't be regarded either as highly or with the degree of contempt it's been met with on its release.
The film's main narrative hubs around Tom Creo, a research scientist who's induced a brain tumour in a macaque monkey in a desperate attempt to discover a cure for his wife Izzy who's rapidly approaching death. When the monkey is fed an unapproved compound Tom incurs the wrath of the Center's director [Ellen Burstyn proving yet
again her mastery of characterization with even the most minimal of script clues]; however the monkey begins showing signs of age reversal. Turns out the compound was acquired by Tom on a research trip to South America. It's significant that in his obsession to find a cure for Izzy the object of his affection, he actually neglects
her as a person, failing to sustain whatever precious moments they have left together.
She, meanwhile, has been writing a historical tale called The Fountain, set during the Spanish Inquisition, in which Queen Isabella instructs her loyal Conquistidor Tomas to journey into Mayan jungles to recover The Tree of Life mentioned in the bible, and often referred to as The Fountain of Youth.
Aronofsky's third narrative strand is set in the 27th century when humans can travel in their own space globes -- reminiscent of the final section of Kubrick's 2001 -- far into the reaches of star-birthing and star-killing nebulae. On one such trip this levitating and wholly spiritual Tommy of the future scrapes away at the bark of The Tree desperate to taste its sap of immortality. This Tommy's story comes closest to the aftermath of grief, guilt, and discovering reasons to go on that disturb the more mundane Tom as he waits out the lead-up to his wife's death.
These are interesting story-telling premises, and it's no crime to pursue them in a non-linear fashion. Where Aronofsky fails, though, is in erecting such alienating barriers both between his characters and between us and them. The moments of connection between Tom and Izzy hint that's where our points of identification should be. But we're constantly yanked away from becoming too involved, a brutal move which must be a deliberate attempt by Aronofsky to remind us of the ragged pain of loss, as opposed to more heart-tugging treatments usually delivered by Hollywood mainstream movies. Sadly, he gets so caught up in his determined ambitions that the whole project often descends into a pretentious pit just when he means it to soar into some artistic nebula.
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Edited by - BaftaBaby on 01/28/2007 20:51:11 |
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Whippersnapper. 
"A fourword thinking guy."
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Posted - 03/13/2008 : 23:16:18
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Sorry to come so late to this thread but the film has just made the satellite channels.
If you think death is romantic (alla "What Dreams May Come") and/or mistake superificial "spirituality" for profundity and/or place production values above content this may be the film for you. It ain't the film for me.
It certainly doesn't help that Tommy and Izzi have the character depth of a cigarette paper - that's half the depth of a cigarette paper each - and the whole thing has absolutely no anchor in the world or anything remotely like it. How can I care about the pain of Tom's loss when I don't believe in Tom, don't believe in Izzi and don't believe in their situation?
Near the beginning of the film a Mayan priest says "Death is the road to awe". I spent the rest of the film waiting for this to be revealed as ironic or at least mistaken.
Well, I'm still waiting.
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MisterBadIdea 
"PLZ GET MILK, KTHXBYE"
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Posted - 03/14/2008 : 00:18:13
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Four star classic.
It's pretentious in the way that's on my wavelength. I don't think it's profound as much as it is audacious and deeply heartfelt. On some level, I just admire its ridiculousness. What Aronofsky has done has chosen three different ways to illustrate the same point -- that life is ephemeral and you should enjoy it rather than fighting to preserve it. |
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Whippersnapper.
"A fourword thinking guy."
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Posted - 03/14/2008 : 02:34:50
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Well, in that case the film could have shown a little joie de vivre rather than a romanticisation of death, dying and mourning. 
In films one man's "heartfelt" is another man's "self-indulgent". Similarly "audacious" can be expressed as "over-ambitious" or "over-stylised" too.
Anyhow, we both agree its pretentious and ridiculous. That's something after all. 
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randall
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 03/16/2008 : 23:44:54
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Couldn't get into it. I loved the guy in space going upwards forever, but it took forever.
Assuming there was any there there, this flick was over my head. |
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The Fountain
