Le Sheng Liu
Nov 27th, 2006, 06:05 AM
Just saw the new film The Fountain by Darren Aronofsky, director of Requiem for a Dream and Pi: Faith in Chaos. Starring Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz, The Fountain spans over a thousand years through three parallel tales of love, loss, and the search for eternal life. My friends and I were all confused in our own ways by the end of the show. Although breathtaking to watch on the big screen, the stories were hard to follow and connect together. After a few hours of thought, I've come up with this interpretation of Aronofsky's latest work. So the three stories are...
1) The Spanish Inquisition - Jackman is a patriotic Conquistador willing to do anything the Queen (Weisz) demands of him in the name of Spain. She sends him off on a mission to find the Tree of Life which shall free their country and allow the two of them to live forever. However, the mythological plant is hidden and protected by indigenous tribesmen in the mountainous jungle.
This presentation is very much a religious and mythological one. The Tree of Life is a sacred object described in the Bible, according to the Queen. It is protected by a tribe deep in the dense mountains atop an ancient pyramid. And the search is contextualized within the Spanish Inquisition, a time and place that determined life and death almost exclusively through religion.
http://blogsimages.skynet.be/images_v2/000/028/502/20060710/dyn002_original_476_268_jpeg_28502_6e29cd1f37c3538 1667363dee2d9306a.jpg
2) Present day - Jackman is a researcher putting all his efforts at the lab into finding a cure for brain tumor to save his dying wife. As her illness gets stronger, Jackman's team reveals that botanical samples used surgically on a monkey has profound healing effects on the animal.
This second and main story follows a scientific theme. The protagonist is a lab researcher. The search for saving his wife is based on biological studies, and her pending death is due to a terminal illness. Even the Tree of Life shows up in a very physical manner: as a botanical sample they use to operate on an infected monkey.
http://media.movieweb.com/galleries/2827/1966/lo/DF-486.jpg
3) Outer space - Not sure what time period this one is cuz Jackman is floating in the middle of the galaxy inside a huge bubble carrying him and the Tree of Life. He is apparently on a journey to the Star of Nebula to achieve eternal life. His wife appears occassionally as he has flashbacks and visions of her, perhaps from the past?
The third story takes an aesthetic and spiritual approach to perceiving death. To be honest, I'm not exactly sure what happens in this part. It's still quite abstract and open-ended, but maybe that was the intention. The Tree of Life's role as the only living object floating in space, the visions of his wife (are they memories, is he dead, is she dead?), and the beautiful, climatic arrival at the Stars of Nebula form an experience of death as somewhat painful and scary but still uplifting and free.
http://www.popmatters.com/images/film_art/f/fountain-2006.jpg
Not to claim that I fully understand the film, but thinking back about the themes in the three stories, I think Aronofsky is trying to present three different ways in which death has been dealt with throughout human history. In past societies, gods and relentless faith determined everything. In today's world, science and politics have joined religion in debates over what is life and what is death and how we should handle things. But one of the friends I saw the movie with said something about dying being an experience that should be accepted when the time has come, and that Jackman's character shouldn't have perceived mortality as a disease which required a cure. I wonder if this understanding of death is most often carried by artists, or people who perceive existence in a very aesthetic or spiritual way.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/11/22/arts/22foun.600.jpg
1) The Spanish Inquisition - Jackman is a patriotic Conquistador willing to do anything the Queen (Weisz) demands of him in the name of Spain. She sends him off on a mission to find the Tree of Life which shall free their country and allow the two of them to live forever. However, the mythological plant is hidden and protected by indigenous tribesmen in the mountainous jungle.
This presentation is very much a religious and mythological one. The Tree of Life is a sacred object described in the Bible, according to the Queen. It is protected by a tribe deep in the dense mountains atop an ancient pyramid. And the search is contextualized within the Spanish Inquisition, a time and place that determined life and death almost exclusively through religion.
http://blogsimages.skynet.be/images_v2/000/028/502/20060710/dyn002_original_476_268_jpeg_28502_6e29cd1f37c3538 1667363dee2d9306a.jpg
2) Present day - Jackman is a researcher putting all his efforts at the lab into finding a cure for brain tumor to save his dying wife. As her illness gets stronger, Jackman's team reveals that botanical samples used surgically on a monkey has profound healing effects on the animal.
This second and main story follows a scientific theme. The protagonist is a lab researcher. The search for saving his wife is based on biological studies, and her pending death is due to a terminal illness. Even the Tree of Life shows up in a very physical manner: as a botanical sample they use to operate on an infected monkey.
http://media.movieweb.com/galleries/2827/1966/lo/DF-486.jpg
3) Outer space - Not sure what time period this one is cuz Jackman is floating in the middle of the galaxy inside a huge bubble carrying him and the Tree of Life. He is apparently on a journey to the Star of Nebula to achieve eternal life. His wife appears occassionally as he has flashbacks and visions of her, perhaps from the past?
The third story takes an aesthetic and spiritual approach to perceiving death. To be honest, I'm not exactly sure what happens in this part. It's still quite abstract and open-ended, but maybe that was the intention. The Tree of Life's role as the only living object floating in space, the visions of his wife (are they memories, is he dead, is she dead?), and the beautiful, climatic arrival at the Stars of Nebula form an experience of death as somewhat painful and scary but still uplifting and free.
http://www.popmatters.com/images/film_art/f/fountain-2006.jpg
Not to claim that I fully understand the film, but thinking back about the themes in the three stories, I think Aronofsky is trying to present three different ways in which death has been dealt with throughout human history. In past societies, gods and relentless faith determined everything. In today's world, science and politics have joined religion in debates over what is life and what is death and how we should handle things. But one of the friends I saw the movie with said something about dying being an experience that should be accepted when the time has come, and that Jackman's character shouldn't have perceived mortality as a disease which required a cure. I wonder if this understanding of death is most often carried by artists, or people who perceive existence in a very aesthetic or spiritual way.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/11/22/arts/22foun.600.jpg