A lot of attention is currently focused on film director Darren Aronofsky because of his latest film The Whale, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival and is now available for public viewing. That’s what inspired me to dive deeper into one of the lesser known films of the director named The Fountain.
The motion picture had the potential to be the young director’s defining work, as it addressed major themes such as life and death, reincarnation, and love. Alas it had a lot of stumbles on its way, from resignation of the lead actor to problems with production and budgeting, which led it to become forgotten after the big success of Darren’s other movies such as Requiem for a dream or The Black Swan.
“How cool would it be to cut from a battle scene in some historical period to a man traveling alone in space for an unknown reason?” Darren asks his friend and co-writer Ari Handel. In fact, that’s exactly what he’d do.
The Fountain follows three seemingly disparate time periods narratives. The first is about a Spanish Conquistador, the second is about a doctor, and the third is about a space traveler. The past, present, and future are all intertwined. All three characters, motivated by love, work tirelessly to defeat death and discover a cure for immortality. In each storyline, we see Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz who are fated to be separated.
I won’t lie: this movie was an experience for me, even if watching it on my laptop didn’t keep me from crying and feeling emotionally overwhelmed. I can’t imagine the movie with Brad Pitt in the lead as it was supposed to be. Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz have done such an outstanding job that I couldn’t help but notice. Hugh’s character, Dr. Thomas Creo, is a typical Darren character: obsessed, persuasive, perfectionist, and slightly insane. However, I would have liked to see more about his relationship with Izzi as well as more about her in this plot line. Darren Aronofsky has set an impossible standard for himself by attempting to introduce his audience to the entire ideology and his characters in 90 minutes. Jumping from one storyera to another felt disjointed at times, and it was difficult to follow the overall thought.
Nonetheless, I couldn’t help but notice Darren’s rich movie culture by recognizing the movie quotes used throughout the film. In the director’s commentary, he acknowledges that The Matrix and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey influenced the film’s philosophical themes. The Holy Mountain and Aguirre, the Wrath of God‘s jungles, the fantasy elements of Memories of Fire, and the epic scope of Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America were also mentioned by the director as major influences on The Fountain. Furthermore, I’d like to emphasize the use of CGI in the movie. Due to budget constraints, Darren devised the brilliant idea of filming organic chemical reactions in a microscopic Petri dish to create the visual splendor of outer space.Stories do not always have to be complicated in order to be deep or to elicit introspection from their audience. In its attempt to be “abstract,” this story left no room for reflection. With the idea of the ocean in mind, Aronofsky portrayed a fountain.