This post is part of a larger deep dive
Curious about the role of the book of Genesis and the Maya creation myth in The Fountain? Check out The Fountain Explained!
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Producer: Arnon Milchan, Iain Smith, Eric Watson
Writer: Darren Aronofsky, Ari Handel
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz
Year: 2006
Duration: 1h 33m
Country: USA
Language: English
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Even before watching The Fountain, I was already sold on the exceptional directing qualities of Darren Aronofsky. I had watched Aronofsky’s two previous movies, Pi and Requiem for a dream, both of which I’d found fascinating (see our article on the movie Pi).
The Fountain, however, was on another level.
I watched The Fountain not too long after it came out of the cinema, so I didn’t have much experience with films of that sort. I was in awe from beginning to end.
My girlfriend, who wasn’t at all into these kind of weird, mind-bending movies was as impressed as I was. We couldn’t stop discussing it. What was that all about? What has just happened?
On the next day, I went to work and kept ruminating about the story, about the characters… Something clicked, something changed in my appreciation of cinema – something I had already experienced with Mulholland Drive, albeit differently. Isn’t that amazing? The power of entertainment, how it can shape and literally change your life?
I thought to myself, it is films like these that make me dream about creating my own fictional universe, a universe where I have free reign to devise its narrative. Were I to possess an inch of Aronofsky’s talent, these would be the kind of films I would devote myself to making.
I can’t contain it anymore! The Fountain is one of the best movies I have ever seen!!! (I guess there will be no surprise in the star rating 🙂 ).
The film is told in three separate but intermingled narratives happening at three different time-points: in the past (around the year 1500 A.D.), in the present (in the 21st century) and in the future (date is never mentioned, but probably in a very distant future).
In the present, neuroscientist Tom Creo (Hugh Jackman) is desperately trying to find a cure for cancer using botanical samples from a Guatemalan tree, so that he could help his dying wife Izzy Creo (Rachel Weisz) recover from a brain tumour.
Tom grows increasingly obsessed with finding a cure and spends little time with his wife, who, by now, has come to terms with her own mortality and accepted her fate.
In the past, Queen Isabel of Spain is being held captive by the Inquisition. She recruits Spanish Conquistador Tomás Verde and orders him to travel to South America, to find the Tree of Life, allegedly hidden inside a Mayan pyramid. The Queen believes the powers of the tree will free Spain and herself from the threat of the Inquisition.
In the future, cosmonaut Tommy travels in his spaceship towards a nebula wherein he believes resides Xibalba, the Mayan underworld. He is traveling with a tree, the bark of which he eats to allow him to live forever. The tree appears to react to Tommy’s voice and touch and we are led to believe the tree is Izzi herself.
The storyline alternates among these three narratives, and at no point in the movie it is made explicit whether the past and/or future timelines are actually real or not. One thing is clear though – they are all connected somehow to the present-day characters of Tom and Izzi.
What a formidable movie!
To me, it has all the characteristics I believe a cinematographic masterpiece should possess. Well-written, well-researched and engaging story; it has action, drama, mystery, thriller, romance; excellent acting, great dialogues, awesome soundtrack and amazing photography…
Aronofsky thought of everything. And to add the cherry on top of the cake, he included just the right amount of weirdness. Without explicitly revealing the meaning of it all, it is as if the film speaks for itself.
Acting was superb at all levels – Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weizs were perfect for the roles they played and I felt an awesome tuning between the two. Both are top notch actors, and a pleasure to see on screen.
The soundtrack is amazing. Clint Mansell, who had already shown his talent with his excellent work in Aronfsky’s previous two films, composed a series of memorable tunes for The Fountain.
And it’s interesting that the music provided a deep connection among the three time-lines. This is clearly noticeable in the last scene, where tempo and rhythm suffer abrupt changes depending on the Tom’s mindset (e.g., slow and imposing as the cosmonaut appears before the Mayan priest, fast and hectic when the supernova explodes).
Everything in this film appears to have been planned meticulously. Aronofsky and his crew traveled to Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, where they visited numerous Mayan monuments and museums to learn about the Maya civilization.
Photography is probably one aspect of the film consensually praised by most critics.
Aronofsky refused to use Computer Graphics (CG) so most of the visual effects were created using other creative means. For example, the part where flowers sprout from Tomás mouth and body was an idea taken from the designer James Chinlund, who had played around with plants bursting out (see video above).
For the outer space elements, the creative team worked with a macro-photographer who created chemical reactions in petri-dishes and essentially shot those reactions and later composite it together.
Of course, Aronofsky could have used CG (and for a few scenes he had no other choice), but his determination to make a film with as many natural elements as possible resulted in a much more intimate experience. For actors, I can imagine, that this induces a certain proximity and intimacy with the events in the movie.
And note the precarious conditions in which the film originated. The studio decided to shut down the project after months into production, so sets were deconstructed and auctioned out. The budget was slashed in half. But thanks to Aronofsky’s persistence and tenacity, the script was re-written, new actors were casted and the entire film was shot in one month in an entirely different location.
And it’s incredible that after all these tribulations, Aronofsky and his team managed to pull off this masterpiece.
Absolutely amazing!
Yes, yes, yes. No surprise in the star rating here. What else can I say that haven’t addressed above? I liked everything in this movie. EVERYTHING!
Maybe I just have one little regret: not having watched it in the cinema… But that’s my bloody fault, isn’t it?!?
The Fountain gets a well-deserved 5 stars!
The Fountain is weird, very weird. The story is not linear, with past, present and future events intermingling. Furthermore, it isn’t clear whether past and future events are supposed to represent reality or not.
There is even a scene in the present that is shown to lead to different outcomes, so even the present timeline shouldn’t be taken for granted.
For these reasons, The Fountain gets a Bizarrometer score of 4.
Even though the Fountain tells the story of three different men (Tomás Verde in the past, Tom Creo in the present, Tommy the cosmonaut in the future), this story is, in essence, the story of the same man.
What do I mean by that? Both past and future timelines are simply different flavours of present-day Tom’s state of mind.
Let’s consider the past timeline. It’s true that Izzi is writing a book about a conquistador in XVI Century Spain, and that the conquistador is searching for the Tree of Life in South America.
However, the journey of the conquistador, specifically his quest to find the Tree of Life, parallels much of present-day Tom’s journey to find a cure for Izzi’s brain cancer. As Tomás Verde becomes increasingly fixated on his quest to the point of killing his fellow conquistadors, so does Tom’s obsessive search for a cure drives him to do unethical research and alienate everyone around him.
Similarly, the happenings in the future are almost a recurrence of present-day Tom’s experiences. In fact, much of the events in the future seem concomitant with the events in the present. One striking example of this synchronicity is when Izzi dies at the hospital, followed shortly by the death of the tree in the cosmonaut’s spaceship.
In addition, the past and future timelines seen also to be interconnected. This is particularly obvious when the cosmonaut enters the past timeline to save Tomás from certain death at the hands of the Mayan priest. But since the past timeline is supposedly the retelling of Izzi’s novel, the cosmonaut cannot not be real in the physical sense.
So, both Tomás Verde and the cosmonaut exist insofar as they exist in present-day Tom’s mind. Even though they are the same man, they meet different fates, which, again, symbolise Tom’s different mindsets.
Filled with greed and attempting to defy death, Tomás Verde dies horribly before having the chance of put on the ring Queen of Spain had given him. So the old way of thinking – trying to cheat nature to one’s own advantage – also dies.
The cosmonaut, on the other hand, accepting his fate that he is going to die, manages to slip the ring in his finger, triggering the massive star explosion that obliterates him and his spaceship. This represents the turning point when present-day Tom has come to terms with mortality.
Alright! The film opens with a paraphrase from the Book of Genesis, so I think it’s now a good opportunity to discuss the Bible.
Thank you so much. Such an underappreciate film. History will look kindly on it as people start to realize.
Hi rigel,
Thank you for your comment!
I completely agree with you. I find it appalling that the film received so many negative reviews – just take a look at the aggregated scores on metacritic and rottentomatoes: 51 and 52% respectively (!).
Anyway, I feel comfort knowing that I’m not alone in appreciating this work of art 😀
Thanks!