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Life & Arts

'Fountain' leaves lasting mark

by JAKE HAMILTON
The Daily Cougar

What if you could live forever?

This infamous question has been the concept of films for years. From Tuck Everlasting's bittersweet drink from the fountain of youth to Peter Pan's determination to never grow old, the prevention of progressive life and the eluding of the darkest of inevitabilities has stalked the silver screen as long as there have been movies.

The Fountain, Darren Aronofsky's latest mind trip, tackles that question through three different centuries. We follow Thomas (Hugh Jackman), the Spanish conquistador in the year 1500, searching for the fountain of youth for his queen Isabella (Rachel Weisz); Tommy in the year 2006, an obsessive husband searching for a cure for his dying wife Isabel; and finally Tom, a man soaring through in a galaxy in a bubble in the year 2500, headed toward his wife Izzy, whose soul is apparently in an exploding nebula.

It's undeniably weird but also happens to be one of the greatest cinematic achievements of the year.a

Get one thing straight: The Fountain is not for the light hearted moviegoer. It is a thinker's movie, made for the person who can accept that straight answers will not be handed to them. Though the film is told in three different narratives, they are only loosely tied together and never, like Pulp Fiction or the recent Babel, come together full circle in the end. The movie sticks with you long after the credits roll and you'll be piecing together your interpretation for many days afterward.

Visually, the film is breathtaking cinematic poetry. Every image could be taken, framed and hung over a fireplace. Each time line has it's own visual attitude, each style creating a particular mood. The color schemes, particularly in the future story line, make for some of the most visually arresting moments in cinema so far this millennium.

However, each performance is limited so that even the best actors (particularly Requiem for a Dream's Ellen Burstyn) aren't given the proper time to really give any depth to their characters. Jackman still manages to show more range in this movie than he's shown in his whole career and is worthy of an Oscar nomination for his performance. Weisz is commendable, though like the others, not given the time to really prove to us why she won the Oscar this year.

The thematic emphasis lies on the fact that only through death can you really live forever with someone; eternity lies not in this life, but the next. Still, there are dozens of other messages and symbols hidden throughout that will take us all years of repeat viewings to find. This film would not only benefit from repeat viewings, it demands them. 

The Fountain stretches the imagination more than any other movie this year. It is a film of depth and substance that sticks with you long after you've left the theater. It manages to be the most frustrating yet utterly rewarding movie experience this year. There are several ways to take the movie, which is what makes it work so well; each viewer gets something different.

The only thing important is what the individual can take from the film. 

Still, the question remains: What if you could life forever? Maybe then, we might actually figure this movie out.

Then again, maybe we wouldn't want to.

Send comments to dcshobiz@mail.uh.edu