Booed at the Venice Film Festival one night and cheered another, Darren Aronofsky’s (Requiem for a Dream, Pi) film, The Fountain, is as likely to divide moviegoers as it did Venice audiences. A science fiction/fantasy/romance, The Fountain confirms what many moviegoers learned in 1998 with Pi, Aronofsky is a talented, ambitious, self-assured filmmaker more than willing to explore difficult thematic and dramatic material while imposing technical challenges on himself and his collaborators. Yes, that means The Fountain is unlikely to draw large crowds, and even among discerning arthouse audiences, it’s just as likely to divide them as it will unite them in appreciation of Aronofsky’s third film. Critics and dissatisfied moviegoers, however, will point to the ending as a major problem. It won’t be easy to understand because Aronofsky prefers it that way, but for moviegoers willing to give it a chance, think or talk it through, the rewards are there for them.

In The Fountain, the central characters all share the same name, all played by Hugh Jackman, but the three characters (or facets of the same character) are separated by time across a thousand years, stretching from the 16th century through the 21st and the 26th centuries. All three men are connected by their love of a woman named Isabel, played by Rachel Weisz, the queen to one, the wife of the second, and a ghostly presence for the third man. Each man loved, lost, hoping to regain what he’s lost, even if it means turning back time or finding the fountain of youth (or to be more accurate, the Tree of Life).

In the 16th century, Tomas (as he's called) travels to the New World at the behest of his queen, Isabel. Isabel hopes that Tomas' voyage to the New World will bring back the secret to eternal life and with it, the opportunity to defeat the encroaching forces of the Spanish Inquisition, who want nothing more than to expose the queen's heretical beliefs and replace her with a more pliable king or queen. Tomas' voyage, however, is fraught with setbacks. Despite the aid of a knowledgeable priest, Father Avila (Mark Margolis), Tomas arrives at his final destination, a hidden Mayan pyramid, with only a handful of men. His men, however, having lost so much, are ready to mutiny and return to Spain. To reach the Tree of Life, Tomas has to overcome his men's doubts and a small army of Mayan warriors.

In the 21st century, Tommy Creo, a neuroscientist, rushes frantically to discover a cure for the brain cancer afflicting his wife, Izzy. Torn between spending time with his dying wife, an author not coincidentally writing a book called "The Fountain" about a Spanish conquistador searching for the Fountain of Youth, and his research which has come tantalizingly close to uncovering a cure for her illness, but his desperate, unorthodox methods draw the unwanted attention of his superiors. As Izzy slips away, she asks Tommy to finish her book for her. 

In the 26th century, an astronaut/explorer, Tom journeys alone in a self-contained, translucent biosphere through the outer reaches of space. The biosphere doubles as an interstellar vehicle, a means of propulsion isn’t visible. The ship has been constructed around Tom’s solipsistic obsession, a dying, 40-foot tree that Tom hopes to bring to a golden nebula and a dying star, Xibalba, for a purpose or purposes that remain unclear. As the ship gets closer to its destination, Tom meditates in an effort to reconcile himself with the past. They or rather she returns, asking him questions he can't or won't answer, forcing him to relive uncomfortable memories.

While the three men are connected by romantic love and obsession, there may be more tying them together. They may be the same man, born, then reborn twice, first in the 21st century then in the 26th century, each driven by lost love to find the Fountain of Youth or in Aronosky’s take, the Tree of Life present in the Judeo-Christian texts (e.g., the story in Genesis of Adam and Eve, the Garden of Evil, and the Tree of Knowledge, exile, death) and in Mayan mystical texts that posit the Tree of Life in similar terms. This much, of course, is open to interpretation, but here’s at least a partial explanation (without revealing too much, story wise).

Aronofsky chose a slowly unraveling mystery means that moviegoers have to work hard at picking up and connecting narrative clues and visual cues. The key to understanding The Fountain may just lie in the texts and influences Aronofsky relied on to craft his screenplay. Like Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, the ending will be subject to interpretation, but the likeliest interpretation hinges on perceiving that time, space,  and causality in the last scenes merge or fold into one another, with future decisions affecting and recasting past ones, making the past is as malleable as the future.

While Aronofsky’s approach might limit the The Fountain’s audience, it’s a net positive, not a net negative, and likely to give The Fountain a spot on the short list of challenging, thought-provoking science fiction films (e.g., Metropolis, The Day The Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris, Blade Runner). The Fountain, however, leaves multiple questions unanswered,  e.g., how “future” Tom obtained the Tree of Life, how the Tree Life was moved to the biosphere, the biosphere’s propulsion system, etc., and that’s nothing compared to the ambiguous ending that’s bound to lead to heated debate and frustration among moviegoers.

Choosing the Mayan culture as a backdrop offers another hint for moviegoers: for them, as for most pre-Columbian cultures in Central and South America, time doesn’t move in a straight line. Instead, it’s cyclical which suggests that Tom’s voyage isn’t just through space, but through his own past, through time and memory. Tom’s voyage ultimately leads to decisions made and unmade in his own past,  to an acceptance of a natural order where death isn’t the end so much as a return to nature and the transience of existence. It’s not so much new or insightful thematically as it is a reminder of an important life lesson (Aronofsky came up with the idea for The Fountain when his parents were diagnosed with cancer within months of each other). Ultimately, The Fountain confirms Aronofsky as a singularly talented filmmaker. More like this please.

© Mel Valentin, 22nd November, 2006