The Fountain - Daron Aaronofsky
Reviewed by Aj DeNecochea

First Offs
First off, I noticed Aaronofsky's vision from the get go. A love story that defies time and space and has no respect or binds to Hollywoodisms.

Pre-Production
Aaronofsky is the kind of young/brave director that needs to have more screen time. His last movie before "Fountain" in 2006 was "Requiem For A Dream" which was released in 2000. You can tell from the continuity and the completeness of the movie that this was in the works for several years. The detail in some of the set designs are awe-inspiring which, for the most part, is used without a CGI look. The background in the "Space Sequence" was made from chemical reactions filmed with a microscope in a petri dish. It's this sort of outside-thinking that makes me respect Aaronofsky's unwillingness to comprimise for his films. He has definatly come a long way since "Requiem" which had a student-film look about it. "Fountain" is crisp, with brilliant use of orange/brown lighting and a perfect soundtrack.

Soundtrack
Like I said before, it is a "perfect soundtrack" by Clint Mansell who also did the score for "Requiem". The pair work together like chocolate and bannanas and I don't think I want to see the day that an Aaronofsky film is made without the musical help of Clint Mansell. I bought this soundtrack from Itunes and have listened to it many, many times. It's personal and beautiful, and yet epic and monumental. I've never heard strings played like this before. On certain tracks like "Tree of Life" we get a taste of the sheer power this movie has with an intense melody and some pretty powerful drums. The soundtrack alone is worth the watch.

Actors
Grade-A acting in this movie. Techniques mastered.

Hugh Jackman can act. Plain and simple. He's proven he can do action with "X-men" and now, after "The Fountain" and "The Prestige" we know that he can do drama just as good and quite possibly better than most dramatic stars. He completley puts you into the character and is able to become not one, but 3 different versions of this character from the past, present, and future. It's simply amazing how diverse he is in this movie. Very sentient, and also very strong till the verge of tears.

Rachel Weisz is also great in this movie. She has the warm, funny, quarky role of the present-day wife and then is able to switch to the cold, duty-driven Queen from the past. She is the ultimate pursuit of happiness in this movie and she makes you believe it too.

Mark Margolis plays the priest, and if you remember him in "Requiem" he also played the salesman who buys the TV near the beginning of the film. I'm glad he had more screen time in this because I think he is a good actor.

Ellen Burstyn does a good job, as always, in this film as well. The figurehead role she plays kind of reminds me of her performance in "The Wicker Man". However, she does show a sympathetic part of her character which battles with duty and the connection she has with "Tommy".

The rest of the supporting actors are not just no-names but rather great actors who make this film a complete masterpiece.
Stephen Mchattie, Cliff Curtis, Donna Murphy, Ethan Suplee, and Sean Patrick Thomas.
An awesome cast!

The Story
To find the tree of life and together they shall live forever.

The story is gorgeous and can be percieved in many different ways. Regardless of how you interperate it, you will know that this is about a man, Tomas/Tommy, trying to hold on to his one true love in three very different and very seperate times. Even if it is difficult to understand or comprehend, you can still sit back and enjoy the beauty this movie has to offer.
My perception:
The Past - Tomas/The Conquistador is in love with Queen Isabel (Izzi in past form) and his Country, Spain. He willingly is ready to die for the two. Then when the Queen asks him to find the Tree of Life he incorporates that love into her and her alone. He is driven almost to death in search of the Tree of Life through Mayan jungles simply so he can end up with his Queen which metaphorically would be Eve to his Adam.
However, when he does find the tree, later in the movie, his love becomes selfish and he drinks too much and becomes a glutton for the power the Tree has, which is why the future Tomas lived so long...because he only took small enough portions to live.
In my opinion...the past never happened. It was a story that "Izzi - Rachel Weisz" created for her husband Tommy. The story was not finished until the very end when Future Tomas figures it out in his head as he is living what would be the beginning and the end of the story and all creation.
Lost yet?
The Present - Here we have Tommy, who is about to lose Izzi to a tumor in her head. He is a doctor and he works on animals to try and create a medicine to help cure tumors. Which is just as valiant as The Conquistador only in modern terms. He finds this sample of a tree and uses it to cure an ape, right? Sadly it is too late, so he is bent on curing death in its entirity. They don't show it, but I believe somehow he finds the tree from the medical records and uses that to live forever.
The Future - Now we see Tomas as the last man. The last living man in known existance. I believe the Tree IS Izzi. Since in the present, the story about the past was symbolic to them, then in the future the present would also be symbolic to him, right? Either way, The Tree's life is defined only by its reaction to Tomas's voice and breath which makes its tiny little "bark hairs" raise up when he speaks and breathes on it. Finally they get to their destination - Xibalba - the birthplace of all creation as Izzi's story goes. Tomas had no interest in going to this "dying star", but his love is so deep that he wants to take The Tree/Izzi there before death.
So what happens? Well, watch the movie, but here's what I think:
The First Father ended up being Tomas all along and he made Izzi's story of the past actually true by bursting the tree and himself in the middle of this dying star which gave life to a whole nother world where history repeated itself up until the point that the two lovers could be together once again and instead of wasting selfish time trying to persue an impossible dream of curing death he spent his time with Izzi, going out on the First Snow, or staying with her as she died just to tell her that everything was going to be alright with him, which is what she truely wanted.

Wrapup - In conclussion, this is the kind of movie you could watch religeously if you are able to comprehend its beauty. Simpletons and dumbfounded critics will overlook its majesty and I'm sure some of your dooshbag friends would say "It was boring so I turned it off". What you do then, is you kick them in the balls and tell them that they are cinamatic idiots who cannot appreciate one of the greatest films of the new century. It should be f#cking hailed for what it is - a perfect take on time and love. Art man, art.
Plus, it had a monkey in it.


-Aj
Comments/Questions/Hate?
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