See, that’s just 180 degrees away from who I am. I’d have killed the Inquisitor and then gladly defended her against all of Europe. Raised an army, slaughtered everyone opposed to me, including their children and never had a milisecond of regret.
I should be clear in stating that I didn’t hate The Fountain, I just found it to be simplistic and repetative of so many things I’ve seen/read before and I was hoping for a new twist on them. It was way more entertaining than say, M:I:III, but then again, that’s kind of like saying a blowjob’s more entertaining than a kick to the nads with a steel toed boot, isn’t it? Other than the story (which could have worked if it had been told in a different manner, IMHO), the only beef I have with the film is a rather minor one. I thought as Tomas, Jackman was a little too limber in his movements in some scenes.
Certainly, the director could teach Lucas a thing or 40 about how to use CGI, and visually, except for the long, drawn out facial close up scenes, I don’t have any complaints about how the film looked. I should point out that I saw this film with a friend who saw both AI and Solaris. He liked AI, hated Solaris and didn’t like this one. I wish that I had seen this in a digital projection theater since the print was fuzzy in some spots and after having seen Casino Royale in a digital theater, it was a bit of a letdown to have to deal with scratches on the print.
I wouldn’t say that people should avoid this film, only that they should go in knowing that it’s only going to look pretty, and not have any depth beyond that. Unlike, say, Pearl Harbor where you didn’t care how pretty the damn thing looked, you just wanted it to be over with, and everyone dead.
I just saw this movie last night. In my opinion, it was good but not great. I enjoyed the past and future storylines immensely. I felt that Aronofsky did an excellent job of getting across the point of mortality in these two time periods. Unfortunately, I found the present timeline to be poorly articulated, largely due to my inability to understand it. I did not understand their love and I failed to see growth in Thomas so ultimately I could not care less about his present day character. I could not help stumbling over their modern day relationship. Additionally, I understand the need for a return to reality when dealing with the present day timeline but I do not understand why the current time period needed to be depicted in a manner that was so bland. A little work on the visual present day and on the storyline would have made me consider this a great movie.
Hehe, all I could think about during that scene was Videodrome.
Slight hijack, but Aronofsky didn’t use CGI for the movie. All the effects were created using some sort of zoom technique that is beyond my comprehension.
Gotcha. And it makes sense, absolutely, that you’d be disappointed. I wasn’t looking for anything new, or a new twist, I just enjoyed the process of the storytelling. Given a different mood and different intent, I might have found it irritating. This is definitely a movie to watch for the journey, not the destination. (The destination, as **Diogenes **points out, is the same station a dozen movies have taken us to.)
I don’t generally look to movies for new and innovative philosophy, unlike Diogenes, it seems. Of course I was relatively aware before this evening that people all die. I just enjoyed watching the *character *really internalize that realization.
And, y’know, Hugh Jackman’s hot. Surprisingly, he’s even hot bald.
As a hetero male, I’ll take your word for it. I wasn’t kidding, though, when I said that anyone wanting to see a great Jackman performance should go see The Prestige. If he doesn’t get an Oscar for it, I’m gonna be pissed!
brianjedi, that’s the other refernce I couldn’t my finger on. There’s a series of Mobius graphic novels (which are based on the Tarot) that this flick reminded me of.
Oh, I had no trouble with that particular plotline (other than it seemed a bit hokey at times) and I did get it. I had a problem with, “When you return I will be your eve.” I was all set to buy that Tomas was willing to die for his queen, that he loved her, do anything for her, blah blah blah. It’s not a tough leap of faith - she’s the queen for god’s sake, the problem is, all of a sudden she throws that line out there and it seems to come out of nowhere. It just seemed a bit unnecessary considering this is the first time we see the two of them together and they dont’ really (The Queen and Tomas) spend any time together AFTER that. He’s subservient the whole time, too. It’s tough to buy that the love is, I dunno - equal, if he’s kneeling before her the entire time.
There were other things. I also happen to agree that the message isn’t exactly unique or incredibly insightful (doesn’t mean I don’t like it). That’s just fine as long as you don’t pretend it is - and that DID seem to come across in the movie on ocasion.
Sorry to bump this back up, but I just got back from seeing it. I don’t think it was all that pretentious. I’ve read a couple interviews with Darren about this film and I get the vibe that he set out to make a film about death, love and the circle-o-life simply because these are topics that are heavy on his mind. Some may find them trite, but I’ve always found them intriguing because mortality is so goddamn frightening and inevitable.
I’m still mulling over the movie. I want to truly love it, because I feel Aronofsky wants to make films that have meaning. Wether that pans out to be universal remains to be seen. I think it’s the opposite of epic film making, which seems ironic giving the expanse of time and themes it deals with. Very few details, very narrow characters, and a relatively short film. So, I don’t think it’s a matter of “getting it” either… who can’t follow these topics? I think what’s going to keep people at a distance, is that Aronofsky’s expecting the audience to fill in all this character stuff. And (at least on the first viewing) it makes them seem hollow or unreal somehow. The details of their relationship is more implied than exposed. Also, you can call it artsy-fartsy all you want, but take it in a little deeper before you truly write it off. I think in the end, the film DOES end up saying something.
More than anything, I think he was making a movie about acceptance (or denial in Thomas’ case) of the inevitable. It’s one thing to realize death is inescapable (most of us figure this out before we’re 8 yo)… it’s quite another to accept it and reconcile that with how we live and love.
Also, I wanted to add how I feel the story lines break down:
•The Conquistador stuff in 1500 AD was Izzi’s dream (and her fictional story that Tom read). Her perspective of her coming to terms with her death, and how she perceived the man she loves… tom.
• The stuff in the spherical tree-ship 500 years in the future was Tom’s dream. This fantasy is how he dealt with her death and his “quest” to eradicate death as a disease, as if the answer must be out there somewhere. The nebula she wrote about… where she thought you go (or at least the Mayans did) when you die.
==> Both these fantasies intermingle with the true present metaphorically. Where the real stuff happened. He found a compound from a tree in south or central america somewhere that happened to bring about a medical breakthrough (this is the only element of sci-fi in this story). From here you can start linking up the metaphors. When the conquistador drinks of the sap and is turned into a human chia pet, the Tree represented Izzi’s view that life is cyclical. When Tom finally came to the acceptance that he was going to die (in the space bubble), he became fulfilled, and when headlong into the nova. When he planted the seed (and I don’t think there was ever any REAL Tree of Life, so the seed was of something else) in Izzi’s grave, this was his acceptance of his death (when they showed the Orion nebula wink out overhead). There are others that I’m starting to draw, but this movie is really growing on me.
I really wanted to love this movie and… I liked it. I really didn’t get how the three different stories were supposed to connect when I first saw it. From the trailers, I figured that the story was going to be: 1) conquistador finds tree for the queen and they both end up being immortal 2) the conquistador is now a scientist using the tree in his lab research because altho the tree makes you live forever, it doesn’t cure cancer which the queen has 3) he failed to save the queen and now the tree is dying, which he is bringing to the nebula to replenish it.
I could kind of appreciate it on just a symbolic level, since I managed to be enthralled by Drawing Restraint 9 which others described as ‘watching paint peel’ but which I count as one of my best cinematic experiences ever. But, the amount of plot that there was was distracting from enjoying it on a purer level. It wasn’t surreal enough like Jacob’s ladder or abstract enough like Drawing Restraint.
I think it would have worked better as the trailer made me think. Or at the very least, take out the tree from the modern day story. The fact that there was this real life fantastic youth inducing tree in the ‘real life’ story made it hard to accept the other two parts as fantasy.
Also, the story was a bit short and shallow. The actors did very well with what they had to work with, but there wasn’t really enough material establishing the depth of their relationship. I later read the graphic novel, and it seemed like the same exact amount of depth.
That said, the acting was great, there were some really nicely written scenes, interesting themes, and great visuals. The movie probably would take on whole new dimension under the influence of some kind of chemical.
Supposedly, there’s Oscar buzz for Jackman on this movie, and while I think that he did a fine job, he just didn’t have good material to work with. His performance in The Prestige is just amazingly good, and that he certainly deserves an Oscar for.
Loved the visuals, indifferent to the movie. Extremely heavy handed, plodding, and not very compelling. From what I’ve read, the film went through several cycles. Originally they had Jackman’s role slated for Brad Pitt with a $70 million budget. Then Pitt pulled out, the sets they built for the movie were sold off, and it looked dead. Then it got resurrected with a $35 million budget. I wish it had the full budget, because I think this movie needed it. A little more emphasis on effects and less on the dull plot and I think this would be an excellent film. As it is, I kinda want to get the DVD and paste together the bubble scenes. I think it would make an excellent short.
Saw this movie last night and LOVED it. It really hit me on a visceral level — I wasn’t expecting it to be so moving. I’m not going to try to defend it, or my opinion of it. There’s no point. I think it’s an amazing piece of cinema.
Allow me to zombify this thread, as I just caught The Fountain on cable. I liked it tremendously, it is one of very, very few movies (like 2 or 3) movies that I have just sat and watched in the last year. It was engrossing. I enjoyed the symbolism, however heavy handed, and the look of the film, and the emotional intensity that Jackman brought to his role.
Here’s what I think happened (for those who are just tuning in, this is an open spoiler thread, so stop here if you don’t wanna have your viewing disturbed:
I think the key to the film is the manuscript to The Fountain. Izzy writes the first eleven chapters, then makes her dying wish to Tom that he COMPLETE it. That was on purpose. She knew she was dying, and accepted it, and saw Tom fighting acceptance every inch of the way, and probably had a good idea how devastated he would be if she died. So she set up the manuscript so that he would have to complete it for her, and in doing so, he’d be extending her beyond death, at least as far as he was concerned (she’d still be dead) because the manuscript would be inextricably linked to her in his mind, and in completed it his life would be joined to her life.
That said, there were a truckload of false leads and so forth in the story which greatly detracted from its success. For example:
You’ve got a miracle drug that gives a monkey with a tumor a strong recovery, though ti doesn’t seem to be doing much to the tumor, and you DON’T immediately give it to your wife who is inexorably dying of a tumor? What worse consequence than death would the drug have had for her?
They made a big deal of the drug increasing the monkey’s intelligence. So why didn’t Tom give himself the drug, turn himself into a super genius, find a cure for the tumor, they live happily ever after as the drug confers immortality on those who take it? Seemed a logical route at one point.
The floating tree seems to embody Izzy’s spirit, but there’s no mechanism in the story whereby it might have embodied her spirit. At no time does anything Izzy-ish come in contact with the tree.
The conquistador must have known what the Spanish Inquisition was like and how it operated. He knew the Queen was almost in the Inquisitor’s grasp, that’s why he was preparing to kill the Inquisitor. How could he possibly have imagined that his Queen would be around to greet him after the very lengthy voyage to the New World and back that was involved, not to mentioned all that traipsing around in the South American jungle looking for a single tree among the biliions that reside there, and remember, no GPS in those days. I didn’t buy his falling for that “immortal tree” bullshit largely because I didn’t see that would help an already tortured and executed queen.
Isn’t there some kind of myth about being given a thistle by one’s lover? I can’t recall offhand.
There’s other stuff that I don’t remember offhand, but basically the movie entertained me because I never did see its resolution coming until near the end.
However long the movie was, you certainly don’t need that long, and you certainly don’t need that complex a story, just to say, “Death isn’t bad.” I’ve seen it done better and with more heart. This one just seemed like the writer couldn’t figure out for himself what the message of the story was and so had to keep expanding it out until finally he sort of got the idea and threw in some Deus ex Machina that would look spiffy and “deep” on the big screen.