Aronofsky’s “The Fountain” Breaths Life

            One of the most painful parts of a reviewer’s job is hearing that the general movie-going public shuns the movie he or she highly recommends––it’s simply heartbreaking. This reviewer highly suspects this will be the fate of “The Fountain,” written and directed by Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream) and starring Hugh Jackman and Rachael Weisz.

            When faced with existentialism, untraditional narrative, and scenes that tell through action rather than spoken word, a bored audience will say, “It’s too slow,” “I didn’t understand,” or “This is pretentious.” This same audience watches movies not to interpret, draw meaning or expand perspective, but to be told bluntly how to feel, not just emotionally but morally. I will cynically say that “The Fountain,” as beautiful, imaginative and adventurous as it is, is not for this audience, which sadly represents the majority of moviegoers today.

            The film tells three tragic parallel stories, which discuss the meaning of life, death and reincarnation. Aronofsky leaves it up for the audience to decide how they correlate and impact one another. In the central storyline, Tom Creo (Jackman), a scientist, desperately seeks a cure for his wife, Isabel (Weisz), a novelist, who is dying from an aggressive cancer. In the second storyline, Jackman plays a 16th Century Spanish conquistador chosen by his queen (Weisz) to find the Tree of Life to save her from the hell bent Inquisitor who wants her head. In the third story, hundreds, possibly thousands of years in the future, Tom travels across the galaxy inside a giant clear orb, encircling the mythical tree, toward the giant nebula-enshrouded star Shibalba.

The three paralleling storylines are about thwarting death. “Death is a disease. There is a cure, and I will find it,” Tom says, an eerie reflection of the human obsession with immortality. They also show the disastrous lengths one is willing to go to save a loved one’s life and the theology of Christian, Buddhist and Mayan resurrection. All is told in the haunting orange and electric white lighting cast by candlesticks and hospital lamps that lend an ethereal aura to each scene.

However, for the modern straightforward entertainment-seeking audience, the movie will be found lacking when it delves into philosophy, often accompanied by silence and metaphorical symbols and phrases­­––where the meaning resides.

The cast as a whole is excellent. Jackman’s performance far surpasses that of his knuckleheaded Wolverine character in the X-Men trilogy and solidifies himself as an A-list actor, while Weisz reaffirms her acting abilities displayed in the “Constant Gardener.”

Jackman’s Tom is pathetically angry, frantic, persistent in his search, so much as to sacrifice what could be the last moments he has with his wife. Weisz’s Isabel on the other hand is resigned and accepting of her life nearing its end, but reaches out to her husband for comfort. She finds solace in writing her book, which she eventually bestows upon Tom to finish.

            Before “The Fountain” was completed, its cast went through a round of incarnations. In 2002, Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchet were in the leads, but Pitt and Aronofsky clashed over artistic differences and production was cancelled. The leads were recast in 2004 with Jackman and Weisz, and the production cost was reduced from $75 million to $35 million. Such changes are generally harbingers of poor box office performance, which, coupled with the film’s topic and the audience’s apathy toward it, a lackluster turnout may prove to be true.

Throughout the film, while traveling through space in his orb, Tom eats the Tree of Life’s bark to extend his life. Meanwhile, ghostly apparitions of his wife haunt him. “Finish it,” it ambiguously whispers. “I don’t know how it ends,” he screams with frustration. These two phrases are repeated throughout the film and strike at its heart. For everyone life ends and at some point we must let go, but how life concludes no one knows.