The Fountain (Darren Aronofsky, 2006): USA
Reviewed by Chloe Seaman. Viewed on DVD.
The Fountain, directed by Darren Aronofsky is a science-fiction fantasy that tackles themes of life, death, and love in an interesting three-part narrative.
It is a story of Tommy (Hugh Jackman), a scientist desperately trying to find a cure for brain cancer with a monkey as his object of experimentation; all while his wife Izze (Rachael Weisz) is battling brain cancer herself. It is the story of the conquistador Tomas (Hugh Jackman), who is sent to find “the tree of life” for the Queen Isabella (Rachael Weisz). And it is the story of a futuristic man trapped in a bubble with a tree, floating through space. In the main narrative (the present), Izze is writing a book called “The Fountain” about a conquistador and Queen Isabella (which becomes the past narrative). When Izze cannot battle anymore, she tells Tommy that he must finish the story. He insists that he cannot, that he doesn’t know how it will end. Tommy is put into emotional and mental frustration with Izze’s death and the meaning of it all. The future narrative is about Tom, still played by Hugh Jackman, who is trapped in a bubble with a tree, a symbol of his beloved Izze. He eats the tree hoping that it will heal him, but what he comes to learn is that in order to keep living with the one he loves, he must embrace death.
What intrigued me most about this film was the cinematography. The use of light is a major element used to convey the story. The idea of the nebula in the story – a bright yellow star that destroys itself in order to live –is a very bold use of the lighting. Overall the lighting is low key and has a greenish tint to it, but in almost every scene there are spots of bright yellow light; props that are lit up on tables, lamps, and candles all have this yellow light. In Tommy’s laboratory, all the tools and objects on the table are lit up and in other scenes there are a bunch of candles that create spots of light against the overall dull mise-en-scene. The distinguished look of the film was symbolic of the nebula, which was in turn a symbol of the themes of the story.
The characters are also very one-dimensional, but it works for this film. The characters aren’t there to tell a story about themselves; they are there to portray the bigger themes of life and death, which are what the film is all about. In that respect, the acting is pretty good, but don’t expect much emotional attachment to the characters.
This was a very stylized film with some very good cinematic techniques, but overall it is not one that I liked very much. If you like fantasy films that have complex and “out there” stories, then The Fountain would be a good film to watch. But for me, it just wasn’t something I would ever want to watch again.
2 Comments
Jump to comment form | comments rss [?] | trackback uri [?]