The Fountain
Friday, December 14, 2007
The Fountain
This, is probably going to be the hardest film to review yet. The reason being is that there are simply too many possibilities for this film, too many interpretations for audiences to search out. For this film, it has the so-called Shyamalan Syndrome - it is either you love this movie, or you hate it with a raging passion. There is a certain quality of mine that I dislike, but at the same time it is something that I cannot help. I hate it when somebody comes up to me and put down a film that I adore, especially when they are backed up with retarded reasons, or simply because they didn't understand the film altogether. It is a quality that I cannot deny, but also a quality that I can put aside in the case of The Fountain. If you are going to come up to me and say that you didn't like this movie because it felt pointless to you, I'd totally understand you. The reason being, is that not everybody out there wants to be mind-fucked by the director. We have been passive receives of interpretations for a very long time, taking in what a movie tells us and leaving little to none to our own imaginations. At the end of the day, we walk out of the theaters thinking about nothing, feeling nothing. But The Fountain arrests your thoughts, it chokes your mind and never lets you go. That is the magic of, The Fountain.
This, is probably going to be the hardest film to review yet. The reason being is that there are simply too many possibilities for this film, too many interpretations for audiences to search out. For this film, it has the so-called Shyamalan Syndrome - it is either you love this movie, or you hate it with a raging passion. There is a certain quality of mine that I dislike, but at the same time it is something that I cannot help. I hate it when somebody comes up to me and put down a film that I adore, especially when they are backed up with retarded reasons, or simply because they didn't understand the film altogether. It is a quality that I cannot deny, but also a quality that I can put aside in the case of The Fountain. If you are going to come up to me and say that you didn't like this movie because it felt pointless to you, I'd totally understand you. The reason being, is that not everybody out there wants to be mind-fucked by the director. We have been passive receives of interpretations for a very long time, taking in what a movie tells us and leaving little to none to our own imaginations. At the end of the day, we walk out of the theaters thinking about nothing, feeling nothing. But The Fountain arrests your thoughts, it chokes your mind and never lets you go. That is the magic of, The Fountain.
It was a film that was greatly anticipated by me last year, but it was also a film that did not receive a critical success. The reason being is probably due to the fact that this film is a great departure from Darren Aronofsky's previous works such as Requiem of a Dream and Pi. This time around, the film has successfully retained much of its former vision and intentions, but at the same time he has created a film that is completely different from the conventions that he has marked under his name, not to mention the conventions that we have grown to be so familiar with. Darren Aronofsky has never been known to be a conventional director, but this film is definitely a departure from is already departed views and visions. A lot of critics and fans were letdown as a result, either because their expectations were way too high, or because of the fact that a large number of them must not have understood the film at all. It is probably why it has a 50% rating on Rottentomatoes.com, which is grossly under-rated if you ask me.
As I have mentioned before, the story of The Fountain cannot easily be summarized into words, let alone the emotions and the interpretations mingled amidst the beautiful imageries. It was a film that I wanted to watch, but also one of those films which I never got around to do so in the past. It slipped through my fingers, and in a way I am glad that it did. I don't suppose I would have been able to appreciate it then, as much as I do right now. I would have been turned off by how confusing the story is, how nothing really makes sense and the amount of brainwork involved was something I did not look forward to as a moviegoer. This time around, with the holidays being on my side and a whole lot of time at hand, I was able to soak it all in and finally falling in love with the film for what it is, and what it attempts to be. This film is a painting, this film is a poetry. This film is a song, and more than that - it is everything.
The story begins in 1500, the captain of the Spanish military finding a lost Mayan temple in the middle of the forest. His two other companions were slaughtered by the locals, but only he was permitted to climb the steep steps of the pyramid to reach his ultimate goal - the tree of life. It is said in legends that whoever that drinks from the tree of life would live forever, and it was the only possibility that Spain would survive from its internal corruption. The queen of Spain - Queen Isabel - ordered Tomas, on this quest, and promised to be his bride if he should return with the ultimate prize.
Then we are introduced to Thomas, the present day character who is a physician working in a laboratory with his colleagues. His wife is dying from a brain tumor, and the only cure for his wife are the barks of a tree that they found in South America. Time is running out for Thomas and his team, and he sees her dying day by day as the virus eat his wife away. But Izzi, his wife, came to terms with death long ago, especially after she has completed twelve of thirteen chapters of her book - called The Fountain. Despite being unmoved by death, Thomas still pours over his experiments all day long, forgetting about his wife most of the time and trying different ways to save his dying wife. We see him becoming desperate, and edging on the realm of insanity.
After that, we are introduced to Tom, the same character as a bald man floating in space. He lives in a giant crystal ball of sorts flying through space towards a dying star called Xibalba where it is said that the dead becomes reborn. Along with himself, a tree in the middle of this crystal ball as his companion, and here is where Tom battles his inner demons, as he tries desperately to come to terms with the death of his wife. Here, we see Tom really bordering on his insanity, as he speaks to his wife who isn't really there, and tattoos on his body - a line every year for five hundred years. He is no longer himself, as he travels through space and time to find the dying star, to revive his wife all over again.
The film is presented to us in an overlapping way, and the non-chronological format makes it a little difficult to follow initially. We do not have a clear idea as to which version of Hugh Jackman is the real person, in the reality of the film. We see a lot of connections and similarities between the different versions, and a lot of other subtle clues as to how they are all interrelated with one another. Everything from the Mayan pyramid on the wall, the ring presented to Tomas, the desperation in all the versions of Thomas as they all search for this mythical cure to a certain problem that they face. The lines between an imagination and the reality are blurred in this movie, and you hardly know where dreams end and reality begins. But that is part of the beauty of this film in a way, in the sense that it does not provide you with answers, and it doesn't intend to. It presents itself in a fashion that is favorable to the director, and you are just allowed to soak everything in, bit by bit. Nothing is rushed in this movie, everything takes its time to breathe, and you'd find yourself immersed in the emotions and the struggles of the characters, even if you do not fully understand the intentions of the director.
Even if the plot and the complexities do not appeal to you, it is also possible to enjoy this film from a completely technical aspect of things. This movie is beautiful to watch, everything is so carefully thought out and shot. The cinematography is almost astounding, and even the movements of the cameras are capable of telling intricate stories of the characters. The set designs are also amazing, and I noticed a lot of symbolisms involved in the scenes, whereby there was a heavy usage in circular designs as well as other symmetrical ones. I suppose these little subtle cues point to the central theme of the movie, and that is how life never really ends at death, and everything is just a circular and continuous circle around life itself. These are some of the things that I noticed upon the first viewing, who knows what I would catch from the subsequent ones? It is possible to just lay back in your seat and enjoy just how beautiful the film is, frame by frame.
With the imageries pushing the film to realms beyond the social norms of films, the haunting music composed by Clint Mansell takes us a step further. I am not familiar with Clint Mansell's works, but this is definitely a composer who is worth checking out. His haunting compositions have already seen the light of day in Requiem of a Dream, but this time - in collaboration with the Kronos Quartet as well as Mogwai - he crafted a score that is both moving and disturbing at the same time. It is difficult to describe just how a piece of music can be 'disturbing', but this score gave me the same feelings as I have had with most of the post-rock music that I enjoy, like Sigur Ros, Explosions in the Sky, Mono and Mogwai. Together We Will Live Forever is probably one of my favorite piano pieces ever. Simple, and beautiful.
Now, to tell you guys the interpretations of the film would not only serve out spoilers, but also the whole point of watching the movie. Still, here is a spoiler warning for those people out there intending on watching this movie, and also a warning on what you should expect from a movie like that. Here we go, this is how I see the film as it is.
It is not difficult to see the relationships between the three stories in the film. The director very skillfully inserted different clues for the audience to find out, which is one of the reasons why I love this movie so much. The difference between stage plays and movies is the fact that the former are usually more dynamic, in the sense that they change with every show they put up. A film remains the same once it is made, unless the director decides to come up with a director's cut, or else everything else remains the same. The experience of the audience is not going to change much on repeated viewing, which is probably one of the disadvantages of films. However, this film has managed to cross that limitation simply because of how dynamic the stories are, how our interpretations may change over time and allow us to see new things that we might have missed in the previous viewing. Everything from the implications of the ring, to the hair on the tree resembling the hair on Izzi's neck, to the tree as a symbol of life throughout the three stories.
I see the 1500 story as the story that Izzi wrote in the book called The Fountain, it was her journey of coming to terms with death. She wrote herself into the story, and of course her husband as the fearless conquistador. In her attempt to open her mind up to her impending doom, she attached her beliefs to ancient Mayan beliefs that she read in books, and incorporated those myths into her stories as well, leaving the last chapter of the book for her husband to complete. Tommy is reluctant in the beginning, because of his work with the experiments and such, consumed by the urge to find that cure that would save his wife. The ring represents his sanity - I feel - the way he lost the ring after the operation, and how Tomas also lost the ring in the bushes towards the end of the film. I will touch on that later.
The 2500 story - to me - is partially the last chapter of the book that Izzi asked Tommy to finish, and another part being Tommy's thought process as the characters traveled through time. Izzi, in this story, is the tree. She keeps him alive, not just as a source of food and oxygen but also a motivation to carry on with the long dreary journey through space. Here, we also see Tom obsessed with reaching Xibalba, in an intention to bring his wife - the tree - back to life. But towards the end of the journey, the tree begins to wither and die - and this represents how everything eventually comes to an end, there isn't a way to preserve life in our reality if you do not come to terms with death first. Like Tommy, Tom was consumed with his search for the cure to his wife's illness, and towards the end we see him finally realizing that death is inevitable. He finds his ring back - his sanity - and he embraces death as a part of life eventually.
In realizing these, the two other versions of himself began to die out in his mind. Overcame by greed, Tomas stabbed the tree and drank its sap, only to realize that the tree does not bring eternal life, but rather life in another form. In this case, grass and flowers started growing out of his body and eventually turned him into another patch of grass. The same happening with Tommy's character, as he revisits the night when he denied the walk with his wife during the first snow, but this time around he makes the right decision to go after his wife instead of the operation table. He buries his wife after realizing that death is inevitable, and plants a seed on top of her grave in hopes that their love would live on in the afterlife. This part shows what should have happened, what he should have done - and everything falls into place after Tom - in the future, and in the last chapter - realizes the truth about life and humanity. The truth is, it is alright to die, because life only changes into another form, and in that way it lives on forever. Izzi saw the lights on Xibalba and was not afraid, the same happened to Tom towards the end as he saw the light at the end of the tunnel and disappeared.
I tried my best to interpret the story, and it is possible to find a hundred different other theories of the film. This is why it becomes so interesting because, nobody is really right and nobody is really wrong. I should end this entry soon, because if I go on with more interpretations I am going to lose a lot of readership. But in any case, I do not recommend this film to anybody out there. It is something that requires a lot of perspectives, and I don't suppose a lot of people would get it. Even if they do get it, they might not like it. For me, I loved every second of this amazing film, and this is definitely something that will remain with me for the longest time.
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