THE FOUNTAIN
US, 2006, 98 minutes, Colour.
Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz, Ellen Burstyn.
Directed by Darren Aronofsky.
The Fountain is a somewhat esoteric piece of science fiction and imagination. It was written and directed by Darren Aronofsky who also made the tantalising film Pi and the stark drama, Requiem for a Dream.
The Fountain is very ambitious in its scope, covering the past, present and future. The past is focused on an expedition to Mexico in the 16th century and the search for a fountain of life, the battles of the Conquistadors. The present focuses on a scientist, his work with chimpanzees, an attempt to find an elixir, a potion that will ensure eternal youth. In the meantime, his wife, a novelist, is dying of cancer. The future focuses on the same man, in a bubble, floating in space, with a tree and the means of eternal life – but wishing to die and be reunited with his wife.
The main protagonists are played by Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz (Aronofsky’s wife). Jackman appears as a Conquistador in the past as well the scientist in the present and future. Rachel Weisz portrays the queen in the past and the scientist’s wife in the present and the future. Ellen Burstyn (who appeared in Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream) is a fellow scientist.
The film is particularly intellectual – appealing to the mind rather than to the heart and to the emotions. While emotions are shown, the audience is invited to respond in a somewhat cerebral manner.
Perhaps this is what led to divided critical opinion. While some championed the film as imaginative and adventurous, it was booed and hissed at its screenings at the Venice film festival.
1. The impact of the film? Critical attack? The blend of science fiction, philosophy and mysticism? The cerebral impact of the film? Its narrative, post-modern style? The visual impact? The emotional performances – but a cool emotional impact on the audience?
2. The present and the laboratories, the hospitals, the home, the winter setting, Izzy’s grave? The ordinary present? Comparisons with the future, space, the galaxies, the bubble, the tree? The comparisons with the past: Spain, the Conquistadors and the court, the comparison with Mexico, the battle and the fort? The effect of the different locations for past, present and future?
3. The structure of the film, the intercutting of past, present and future? Each story commenting on the other? The links with Tommy? The links with Rachel Weisz playing the queen as well as Izzy?
4. Light and darkness? The musical score and its moods?
5. A reflective film, the strength of the dialogue and reflection, the mystical aspect, the role of music, the importance of time?
6. The focus on the present: Tommy, in himself, his working with the staff in the laboratory, the experiment with Donovan, his relationship with the superior? The tumour, the experiments, the medication for helping Donovan? The comparison with Izzy, her health, dying? Her wanting to walk with Tommy, his busy approach, her wanting him to read her story, The Fountain? His reading it, imagining it? Her not finishing it, her saying that he should finish it? The refrain of ‘finish it’ throughout the film? His vigils at her bedside, her death? The superior and her assisting at the bedside? His anger at Izzy’s death, the reaction of the staff, the funeral, the director’s speech and his angrily walking away? The contrast with Donovan improving? The possibilities of health – and eternal youth?
7. The focus on the past: the Queen of Spain, the audience with the Conquistador, the friar, the mission? The tree and its power? His going to Mexico, the battle, the soldiers leaving, the fight, the Mayans, the friar dying? The Mayan priest, the confrontation with the Conquistador? The tree, its sap, giving life and beauty, the growth of the flowers, the growths growing out of him and his being consumed by the flowers? The mysticism of life and death?
8. The focus on the future: Tommy in the bubble, floating in space, in the galaxies, bald, his clothes, his age – ageless? The importance of the tree, the bark, giving life? The tree and its dying? Izzy and her immortality, the seed buried and growing into a tree? The touches of pantheism in people present in the trees? Embracing the tree – but his dying, to be together eternally with Izzy, not lost in space and time?
9. The themes of life, identity, science and its development, philosophical understandings of the human person and identity, the role of history, the need for death? Immortality as a delusion? The human need for death?
