THE FOUNTAIN (impossible to insert spoilers)
Alric Knebel
everything out at this time, I'm afraid my words will accrete to some
negative cosmic vibe that would discourage filmmakers in the near future
from veering off the purely commercial path. However, as I'd read from
one of our regular posters in these newsgroups, the film became
confusing in the middle and the ending was dissatisfying. To clarify
that opinion with my own experience, once you accepted the fact that the
flashbacks (if that's what they were; more on that later) were drawn
from a shuffled deck, with an intentionally nonlinear pattern, the
ending (upon a single viewing, anyway) failed to enlighten us as to how
to actually order the montage so we could know exactly what the point
was. WHAT had actually happened?
The gist of the film is a sort of new-age spirituality, and maybe the
flashbacks weren't flashbacks at all, but things happening
simultaneously in a single instant, beyond time. I suggest this based
on something that happened at the tree the first time Tomas (the
conquistador) indulges himself with its sap. To give a little bit more
away here (believe me, these tidbits aren't revealing nearly enough to
constitute a "spoiler") to encourage the uninitiated to initiate
themselves into it, the title of the film is the title of the book Izzy
(formerly Queen Isabella, benefactor to the conquistador and later his
lover, wife; whatever) is writing. She's dying, and assigns Tomas the
task of writing the last chapter, in his own hand, using an antique pen
and ink gift set. The book seems to be about their history together,
through the five hundred years since they initially met (when she was
the queen), but primarily about their search for eternal life (maybe).
The only opening credits is a shot of the front cover of this
beautifully penned book.
The "present" in the film is way the hell up in the future, but how far
(as much as I could tell from this initial viewing) is never
established. He's traveling in space in a bubble with the tree, toward
a star (a nebulae, more precisely, established as having significance
between himself an Izzy in one of the flashbacks). One of the making-of
segments included on the DVD suggests he was the LAST MAN alive, but if
that's established in the film itself, I didn't pick it up. And if I
had a complaint, that would be it, that the film didn't establish its
reality within itself, but was dependent on outside commentary in the
documentary. The nature of the theme wasn't concrete enough for you to
assert with any satisfaction that THIS segment is far in the future, and
Tomas is the last man alive. Borrowing as it does some Buddhist
iconography, you were left with too many alternate interpretations of
what was really happening. Had his life been continuous from his
meeting with Isabella? Or did he die at the root of the tree, becoming
flowers, to be reborn at some later time?
I think what Darren Aronofsky was aiming for was the seamless blend of
science and mysticism that left so many of us awed at the ending of
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. But upon this single viewing, THE FOUNTAIN was
left all too vague to interpret any of it with any real satisfaction,
permitting you to get up knowing knew at least SOMETHING about what
happened. I'm emphasizing the point that I saw it only ONCE, and there
could more clarity with a second viewing, and Aronofsky might have
achieved his goal. Here's the important thing: I liked this movie
enough, with its visual beauty and refusal to pander to the popcorn
crowd, to sit through it again, to see if maybe the mysticism and
mystery coalescence into something more concrete and linear, even if
some questions remain unanswered (like in Kubrick's film).
--
_________________
Alric Knebel
http://www.ironeyefortress.com/C-SPAN_loon.html
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Al Smith
It definitely had a "2001" vibe. It's the kind of movie that used
to be made in the late 60s and early 70s but with poorer special
effects. "Zardoz" kind of movie. Confused, but vaguely meaningful,
in a way that isn't explicitly stated. I mean, really, what was
the end of "2001" all about, anyway? I don't even think Clarke
knew. The "Fountain" could have been a great film, but it isn't.
It's just an interesting film, sort of. And pretty. Very pretty.
-Al-
Alric Knebel
I'm going to withhold a final opinion until I've seen it at least twice.
I watched MULHOLLAND DRIVE about ten times within the first two weeks.
I'll give this one at least that much respect. After all, according
to the extra features, this was a movie Aronofsky tried to make for
years. He must have something concrete at the bottom of it.
Flasherly
>
An affair of afterlife, new age or whatever. Solaris has elements, as
does Photographing Fairies. None so uniquely in accounting mythic
Indian rituals - between Gibson, this, Pan's Labarynth, and Perros
Amores, seems Mexico has been generating a fair amount of interest.
It's still basically romance - an added dimension to star-crossed
lovers. Like a majority of songs, which most are.
moviePig
If I ever make a movie, especially a hugely overambitious one like THE
FOUNTAIN, I'll certainly want you to watch it... because you do go the
extra mile. I don't disagree with your sentiments about the movie,
including the fervent wish it engenders in us to like it a lot... but,
lord, I need at least a *little* more spoon-feeding...
(And, btw, I found 2001:ASO's finale considerably more comprehensible
than FOUNTAIN's... and doubt that it flummoxed Clarke at all...)
--
- - - - - - - -
YOUR taste at work...
http://www.moviepig.com
Alric Knebel
I too found the finale 2001:ASO more comprehensible, as mysterious as it
was. You still didn't know what the ultimate goal was for whoever made
the monolith, but you could wander around it for a long time and still
feel satisfied that the film had a conclusion. Because I found
Kubrick's film so satisfying, I want to see something like it achieved
again. But I don't recall having any trouble with the ending first time
out. I was in awe, but felt I got my head around it all, infinity be
damned: Kubrick had staked an outer limit somewhere within it. It seems
that Aronofsky had a similar ambition, some idea of the territory he
wanted to stake in film history. THE FOUNTAIN didn't achieve that, as
if Aronofsky mistook mystery itself as awe, failing to understand that
there has to be pilings driven into reality here and there to tell us
where we are. The spoon-feeding you're referring to. I wanted a bit
more of it, too, and I'm going to give Aronofsky the benefit of a doubt,
that they're there somewhere and I was just looking in the wrong place.
I can't believe a movie he thought that long about could have missed
the mark so thoroughly. I'm hoping that a second viewing, while knowing
where it's all going, will help me spot the keys to it. If not, then
I'll be disappointed. Beauty won't be enough to firmly establish its
value.
Flasherly
2001 wasn't revealed until 2010 for benevolence. A seminal piece at
the time, much as Robbie the Robot was to 1956 and Forbidden Planet
for a time of HAL(IBM) and NASA to endear more venturesome
Startrekkers. Fountain is as if no more than a 'chickflik' in
comparison and magnitude, as appealing to Wiccan accords for a minor
note, than from a base of established social observance Kennedy
endeavoured in conjunction with a Russian exploratory agenda. For a
relative measure of appeal, one might look to a magnitude the Matrix
and possibly LOR engaged audience -- in one sense for a linear
continuation and evolvement, while from the other to a delayed latency
which managed to eclipse WWII and any immediate sense of broader
consciousness for awhile and more.
Alric Knebel
What?
Flasherly
Beyond any mere sense empirical diction delineates, a rich panorama of
impressionistic syntax unfolds before an otherwise viscerally
euphemistic symbolism, timelessly mythical in essence, to transpire in
rites once to the accompaniment of metronomic repetition -- in each
pulsation a perfect scale formed to a scope across so far-flung a
distance stars subsume, to reverberate aloofly from the shimmering
canopy of mirror-images, a hallowed consciousness reflected in
immortality.
Can hardly wait for a script derived from Norman Mailer's Ancient
Evenings.
Shadowland
Yes just like the film.
You've got some philosophy you want to communicate, but it's rather
vague in you own mind and incomplete.
What to do ?
In cinema,modern art or just posting on usenet, you can always
obfuscate.
Leave them with the impression that indeed there's something to it
but they're just to stupid to grasp it.
Then they'll nod their heads "yes" in agreement not wanting to be
left out.
"Oh yes Andy Warhol was such a genius !"
Flasherly
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I understand 2001. Just that it
helps to know Clarke didn't do it out of pure meaness, but co-wrote it
with Kubrick. As for philosophy, if all this weren't vague, missing
bits and pieces, there would be precisely that -- nothing to do. We'd
be Bradbury's Illustrated Man at some future point in society facing
voluntary extinction for lack of what to do. It's an immortal quandary
each must face - time travel and molecular bonding valence levels.
True, people do at times get left out. And, yes, we do often live in
states of relative inequality. I'm not exactly sure what Dandy Andy
was up to -- only that artists intersect at the juncture, cultural
disposition and prevailing moods form in agreeable expression and
idioms. Mere fancies, for most part, put there because it pleases
either you or I to a lesser or greater extent, more or less as each is
capable or disposed.
There's no need to mistake artists for prophets or dictators.
In times when one feels left out, I find Bertold Brecht, a German
playwright, especially noteworthy. A brass figurine was placed
conspicuously upon his desk, like any common variety of identity cards
whence people direct business from behind. The figurine was a
jackass, though -- beneath which was written: Even I, too, must
understand it.
Emperor Caligula
you couldn't. Though low marketing, and some unsatisfied viewers, I
found The Fountain to be one of the best of this year so far.
Flasherly
wrote:
> Yeah, even if you "tried" to explain or spoil The Fountain for someone,
> you couldn't. Though low marketing, and some unsatisfied viewers, I
> found The Fountain to be one of the best of this year so far.
Knurly. That's all I keep around for casual, on the moment viewing.
Enjoyed Patton again the other evening, although dipped into the
library for that, unlike hard drives I've filled with scifi or fantasy
movies. Dated a Jewish woman and she said all her parents would watch
is funny movies. Seemed to me a horrid, limiting thing to do, even
though she did explain they had survived the holocaust. The first
books I read were scifi and fantasy. Somehow they've survived for a
comforting pseudo-bias apart from a reality allied to later classical
forms or technical expression.