The Fountain

Pretentious. That's one word you may have heard describing Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain. And the people who label it as such are not without merit. The plot is wide open at best and completely nonsensical at worst. There's a very in-your-face religious combination of Judeo-Christianity, Mayan lore, and Buddhism at the core of the film. Symbolism, imagery, and quirky transitions run rampant. So, yeah, I suppose this is one of the more pretentious films around. But it's certainly not a bad one. I didn't love this flick, but I did enjoy its graceful ninety minute run. It's shot and scored beautifully, and the acting is nothing to complain about either. In trying to describe (defend?) the film's lack of a coherent plot, Aronofsky likens his project to a Rubik's cube; there's no right way to solve it, but there is definitely one solution. The solution here? Something about death. (There's no real plot to spoil, so read on with no fear of having the movie ruined.) There's a man who loves a woman, and she's dying from brain cancer. The man (a scientist) tries very hard to find a cure for her cancer, and while he's at it, he finds an anti-aging device (my guess is that this is symbolic of the titular "Fountain" of Youth; yeah, I know, I'm not really going out on a limb with that one). But this woman has written a book that takes place in Inquisition-era Spain, and as the man reads the book, he pictures himself as the chief conquistador and his dying wife as the Queen of Spain. And eventually there's a future-version of the man who is riding through space with the (dead) biblical Tree of Life in a giant bubble toward a supernova. Yep, it gets pretty weird pretty fast. But the imagery is cool and the message manages to be somewhat straightforward (don't fear the reaper, is what I took from it - along with some various stuff about self-sacrifice and the danger of seeking eternal life and such). So was the movie "pretentious?" Yeah, probably at least a little bit. But did it suck? Not at all! I'd watch it again in a heartbeat, even if mostly just to see if I could pick up on some subtle shit (you know, the bread and butter of pretentious films) that I didn't catch the first time through. It certainly beats the hell out of Pi. Pi sucked.