The Fountain (2006)

It’s not often that I go to see a film more than once theatrically, if only for the reason that I try to see as much as I can each year and to cover as many films as possible for this blog. But The Fountain provoked such an intense gut response from me that I kept going back to it in my mind, and eventually I found myself in the cinema again on Saturday afternoon to lose myself in the film once more and to digest what I had seen the day before.

The Fountain is a labour of love for Aronofsky brought to fruition after a troubled gestation over several years, a picture so openly, nakedly personal that it leaves itself vulnerable to derision and scathing criticism. Indeed, chances are that what you may have read about The Fountain is that it is preposterous and plainly terrible: the picture’s approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes which garners all available print and internet reviews in the US is at 50 % split down the middle while British critics have variously called it “the greatest auteur folly since Lady in the Water”, “narcissistic and flimsy” and “confused”. What frustrates me about the mixed-to-negative reception is that many critics seem to have taken the easy route of dismissing the film with a derisive blurb, foregoing any proper discussion.

One constantly reads that the film is supposedly incoherent and doesn’t make a lick of sense but the truth is that it really isn’t that hard to follow if you are prepared to actively participate in a conversation with it. Equally, the notion that the film is confused about its own purposes strikes me as a lazy and easily-dismissed charge: it is open to various interpretations as any good art should be but they do not conceal or complicate the central themes that Aronofsky wants to impart in The Fountain. Nobody, even the film’s most ardent admirers and defenders, is going to argue that it isn’t without shortcomings (some of them serious, some of them coming down, I think, to individual taste), but only a few detractors seem to have tried to engage with the film properly (for critical but balanced assessments, look no further than Michael Wilmington’s take in the Chicago Tribune and Matt Zoller-Seitz’ blog review). Apart from my own review, you’ll also find praise in thoughtful and eloquently articulated pieces by Slant’s Nick Schager and Walter Chaw from FilmfreakCentral.

Spanning three centuries and intertwining as many storylines set in the past, present and the future, The Fountain tells the story of three characters (all played by Hugh Jackman) on a quest to gain immortality. In the Age of Discovery, Conquistador Tomas is sent by Isabel, Queen of Spain, whom he loves, into the country of the Mayans to find the Fountain of Youth, i.e. the Tree of Life so that Isabel can repel the challenge of the Inquisition. In present-time America, neurologist Tommy Creo is conducting experimental surgery on monkeys with samples taken from a Central American tree to find a cure for his cancer-stricken wife Izzi before she dies. In the 26^th century, Tom, a shaven-headed astronaut travels in a bubble spaceship which also houses the Tree of Life to the nebula of the dying star Xibalba in the hope to be reunited with his dead wife.

Part science fiction, philosophy, adventure, fantasy and melodrama, The Fountain ambitiously tackles grand themes of life in the face of death and mankind’s desire (and folly) to overcome mortality. On its basest level, however, the film is about love. It deals with and celebrates true love between two human beings, a love that goes so deep that it defies boundaries, love that lasts a lifetime and beyond, love that transcends death. It articulates a strong-held, romantic belief in genuine faith and devotion in a relationship. One reason for my strong response to The Fountain is that I share its belief in values that today often seem to be dismissed and compromised. The film presents and upholds these beliefs with a sincerity and austerity that although it can sometimes stifle the picture, I find uplifting and very refreshing. This is not merely because the film mirrors my own beliefs but also since, as a gay man, I sometimes feel like being in a minority within the minority when the idea of real commitment is so often dismissed out of hand (I wouldn’t advocate nor do I believe in commitment merely for the sake of it but I am romantically inclined and I don’t agree that companionable love and dedication is impossible or not desirable).

I think it essentially boils down to this: you get from The Fountain what you bring or are prepared to bring to it and what you take from it depends on how you choose to respond to the way the film communicates its messages. Anyone with a cynical disposition is bound to have a terrible time with it and it may well be too much even for some of those who are willing to accept the film for what it is. It walks a fine line between the sublime and the ridiculous and occasionally it becomes both at once. How Aronofsky visualises Tom’s space travel is a case in point: picture a bald Hugh Jackman in pyjamas floating in a bubble through space in the lotus position and then imagine him practicing Yoga in silhouette, and you get a good idea of how The Fountain tests its audience’s readiness to go along with whatever the film throws their way.

As it happens, the space travel has been the most ridiculed aspect of the film, yet ironically it’s arguably the most complex narrative as it invites not only a metaphorical but also a literal reading (even if that is not clear until the film’s closing scene), and the images that Aronofsky has come up with here are absolutely stunning (the effects were almost exclusively achieved by using micro-photography of chemical reactions and look and feel very organic). I also find it to be the most moving part of the film, irrespective of how sentimental (and yet sincere) the conclusion is. Whether you choose to read it as a metaphor for how Tommy handles or struggles to handle Izzi’s fate, or as a literal continuation of the present story in which Tom seeks to be reunited with his wife, the journey to Xibalba is powerful and intensely moving in that it shows to what lengths a man can go in an act of love. It made me think of the final scene in Don’t Look Now where the smile on Julie Christie’s face movingly proves how love lasts beyond the event of death. There’s another aspect to the 26^th century scenes that stood out for me, an otherworldly mood and surrealist quality that I found somehow comforting and soothing: the dreamlike visuals and the subtle use of silence with sporadic sounds and music works to great effect. Clint Mansell’s score, performed by the Kronos Quartett and the Scottish rock band Mogwai, is exceptional and by my reckoning one of the few film soundtracks that removed from its original context is likely to stand on its own.

A few words about the narrative set in the present which concerns Tommy’s race against time to find a cure for Izzi’s tumour: it’s the centerpiece of the film that informs and drives the other two storylines, being as they are manifestations of Izzi and Tommy’s mind. Aronofsky establishes clear parallels both in the images (consider the dissolve from the tree to Izzi’s leg etc) and in content, and repetitions of shots and dialogue lines give further clues so that the connection between the three narratives is by no means as nebulous as some critics have implied. Still, this part of the film is missing an human element which is all the more damning considering that The Fountain is meant to be about the driving force of emotion. Tom and Izzi feel less like human characters than a concept of a person which matters less with Tom if only Hugh Jackman’s terrific performance imbues the character with some recognisably human traits, but Izzi feels too much like a mouthpiece to convey the film's ideas through.

It’s in those scenes where the film’s didactic slant is most noticable and, frankly, alienating. Didacticism can work as it does in some of Kurosawa’s later films like RAN (from Ikiru, Aronofsky burrows the trick of temporarily muffling the sound to show how Tommy has closed his mind off to his surroundings) but generally speaking, abstract cinema of ideas holds little to no appeal to me. I feel that films should captivate us with a good yarn first and let us discover the meaning beneath it second, as, for example, Hitchcock’s films allow us to. I find films that have artistic concerns but announce and present themselves explicitly as art intolerably pretentious and self-absorbed which explains my intense dislike for Peter Greenaway and some of Godard’s films. The Fountain can feel as distancing itself though Jackman’s performance is so passionate and heartfelt that it makes Tommy’s love for Izzi and his despair and grief tangible. Jackman’s acting transcends the film’s clinical detachment for me but that may not hold true for others.

I have read people arguing that Weisz’ character displaces her fear by writing her novel about conquistador Tomas but I don’t really see this reflected in Tomas’ story. It reflects how she sees Tommy (I have the theory that this can also apply to the missing chapter which Tommy eventually writes though the film is ambiguous enough to allow us to equally read it simply as Tommy’s version) but it adds nothing to her character. The present-day narrative feels compromised, Izzi’s fight with cancer too clean and dignified but an extended cut on DVD might give this middle section greater emotional depth and conviction.

It’s interesting to note that Andrew Sarris of the New York Observer felt that the film’s “outlook on life remains too constantly pessimistic (…) and too completely joyless”. What the film is trying to say (made clear at the end of each of the three narratives when Tom as his past, present and future self comes to accept the futility of defeating death and finds redemption in the process) is that death is an intrinsic part of life, making every moment of our lives so precious that we cannot afford to squander it. Couple that with the film’s unwavering belief in love as our means to sustain ourselves and each other, I found the picture invigorating and life-affirming. Even when it falters, The Fountain is a film of singular beauty that stimulates and lingers in the mind.

B-