by Lichfield1979

Created on: November 18, 2008

Advantages: The music and the art direction

Disadvantages: The unconventional narrative is not going to appeal to everybody

The Fountain (2006)

The Fountain always had a great premise.

Three stories in three separate time frames - A conquistador sent by a Queen to search for the tree of life in ancient Mexico; a scientist searching for a cure for cancer to heal his dying wife in the modern era; and a monk safeguarding the transportation of a precious cargo across the stars in the far fetched future. The same two actors would play the leads in each.

Director Darren Aronofsky's script was originally slated to star Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett but budget cuts led to rewrites and the visual effects were redesigned. Eventually the movie starred Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz.

The plot is not necessarily important to The Fountain and neither is the dialogue. The story is largely a framework for the sepia drenched art direction and the orchestral soundtrack to make imaginative statements. It's a brave attempt to sweep the audience up in something different to the usual cinematic experience and the film was widely praised for its ambition if not it's coherence.

We begin with a Genesis quotation and then Rachel Weisz and a ring and a white light in an ornamental historical setting and then straightaway a flashback to Hugh Jackman knelt in a temple. There's a brutal battle sequence as tribesmen repel the Spanish intruder. We see a constellation and a temple top in the clouds as fires burn in smoky light. A priestly figure, who is also a warrior, speaks of sacrifice for the tree of life. He stabs the hero. "Death is the road to awe"

A scream. Now we're watching a Buddhist meditate, levitating through space in a glass dome that contains the tree of life. But it's the same constellation and the same man but he's bald now. They're approaching a nebula. He's wearing the ring we saw at the start. He promises the tree they'll be all right. He eats from the tree as an elegant cello motif plays. We intercut with an apparition of two people talking at an earlier time. Then black silhouette callisthenics on a black and white dapple of star fields. The monk is haunted by the ghost of a woman dressed in white who resembles the medieval queen but is clearly from the present day.

In the present day the monk/conquistador is a scientist or a doctor called Tommy and Tommy has mid-length hair. His wife Izzy has long hair in her flashbacks but something has happened because she's cut it short.

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