Fountains of Pretension

I have two friends, an older couple, who lost their son in a car accident when he was 18 years old. I never knew him personally. However, I did come to know him through the experiences of my friends. Whenever I would visit, they would pull out scrapbooks of their son's childish drawings, or an essay he wrote, or a letter he composed while on vacation. Their memories, still fresh for them, they related to me in an effort to help me understand THEIR LOSS. And while I learned about the kid through them, his memory and his life do not impact me emotionally. I UNDERSTAND their grieving, and out of my love for them I support them, but I cannot ever relate to their son and his life in any way other than the abstract.

Such is the ultimate undoing of "The Fountain," the newest creation of film festival favorite Darren Aronofsky. The film, primarily concerning a scientist named Thomas Creo (Hugh Jackman) and his attempts to cure his wife Izzy's (Rachel Weitz) inoperable brain tumor, leaps through three separate stories set in radically different time periods. Besides the present day Thomas and his frantic race against his wife's death, we see a 15th century conquistador named Tomas (Jackman again) searching for the Tree of Life, as well as a bald astronaut named Tom (Jackman yet again) floating through space to rendezvous with a nebula in a far away galaxy.

Aronofsky has Big Ideas he wishes to present to us, replete with fancy editing and camera tricks to EMPHASIZE the importance of his message. Unfortunately Aronofsky, obviously overcome with infatuation for this message, falls victim to the same trap as my friends: these ideas appeal to Aronofsky in his mind, but in trying to relate those ideas to a paying audience, he presents images and words as proof of these ideas without making us care one way or another.

Early press compared the film to "2001," and stylistically and tonally there are tremendous similarities. However, "2001" tackled scientific ideas of evolution, invention, destruction, and rebirth, so its cold, calculated tone underscores the message. "The Fountain," however, tackles loss, death, and love - topics that need to be FELT, not pondered over - and so the cold calculation of the execution severely undermines the story. Jackman and Weitz strike pretty, "important" poses as doctor and patient, but in reality this is nothing more than eighties movie of the week stuff. Yes, we have it all: the gasping pauses and the tears whenever anyone says "die" around the wife; the somehow unblemished, radiant, and wise dying cancer patient; the distraught, powerless husband angrily throwing things and then collapsing into a crying fit on the floor; the wife slipping away silently just as the cure for her condition is found. Turgid, turgid stuff. Even Lifetime doesn't make them like this anymore.

Without anything in the film to emotionally connect with as an audience, we are left to ponder the symbolism and the Big Ideas. Certainly Aronofsky has worked out a complex diagram for his Ideas. Unfortunately, the basic premise of the movie - death leads to rebirth, leading to eternal life - isn't really as smart or as complex as Aronofsky believes. The movie itself attests to its own self-importance, with its glacial pace and funereal, somber tone; it wouldn't have been any more obvious if, during the movie, Aronofsky himself appeared onscreen and said, "Pay attention. This is really important."

While Aronofsky, during the editing phase, should have realized how ponderous and pretentious this high school thesis/film seemed, his direction is quite interesting. The film's strong point comes from the cinematography by Matthew Libatique; there may not be a more beautiful looking film in 2006.

Ultimately, "The Fountain" provides lots of eye candy and little else. By creating a film without real characters and situations, and loading it with pretentious Big Ideas, the water in Aronofsky's "The Fountain" proves to be shallow and cold, indeed.