The Fountain: Let's Get Metaphysical!
So evidently I missed the best film at the film fest by far - The Lives of Others or Das Leben der Anderen, the first film by German Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck which won the people's choice award this year and which everybody wouldn't stop talking about. Whatever.
I did see The Fountain though, Darren Aronofsky's (Requiem for a Dream and Pi) latest film, about the Tree of Life, metaphysics and mortality.
Isobel/Izzy and Tomas/Tommy (Rachel Weisz and Hugh Jackman - both great) are lovers in three different time periods stretching over a millenia. From the 16th century (where she is Queen Isobel of spain and he a conquistador) to the present (where she has terminal brain cancer and he's an experimental cancer researcher) to the 26th century (where he's... basically floating through outer space in a bubble), the story is the same - he's fighting to make her immortal.
The ideas are pretty cool, but more than anything the art direction and cinematography were incredible. 
16th Century - Conquistadors gone wild.
Present Day - Hey what's that? Oh, if only we had a flying tree bubble...
26th Century - Stop this ride, I want to get off.
The story is presented in a non-linear way, and it's not totally clear how much of what we see is actually happening. Overall, a lovely little poem about trying to hold on to things you love. There just aren't enough metaphysical fantasy films these days, really.
2 comments:
i would say it was more about learning to let go of the things you love.
remember...if you love someone, set them free! right. Does that apply to platonic love? Answer me that, bald Hugh Jackman!
I would say that the movie's point is that the two are exactly the same.
In any case, oh sugar, you know platonic love is a whole different set of metaphysics.
You actually have to grow hair all over your body and drink the sap of an underwater bush.
Only then can you turn platonic to porntastic.
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