The Fountain (2006)

After the success of Requiem for a Dream in 2000, director Darren Aronofsky announced that his next film would be a post-matrix science fiction piece.

The story would deal with the search for meaning in life and the search for God. Shortly afterwards in 2002 Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett signed up to appear in The Fountain which was budgeted at 75 million dollars. The script had received positive word of mouth from online film websites and everything was looking good.

Then Pitt suddenly dropped out and despite the fact that sets had already begun construction the film was shut down. Warner Bros who was producing the film wanted to get a co-financier on the risky sounding project before production could begin again. Aronofsky re-wrote the project so that it could be done on a budget of 35 million and recruited the less expensive Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz and a greenlight given again.

The story of The Fountain revolves around the tree of life, which has the power to grant immortality. It begins in the 16th century as a Spanish conquistador Tomas played by Hugh Jackman searches for the tree of life in central America to bring back to Queen Isabella of Spain played by Rachel Weisz. The Queen believes the tree will end the fighting in her country as the Spanish Inquisition is closing in believing her to be a heretic.

We then flash forward to 2005 where scientist Tom played by Hugh Jackman again, frantically searches for a cure for his terminally ill wife Izzy who is played by Weisz again. He experiments on monkeys using pieces of a tree that they have found in Brazil. Izzy meanwhile writes a book for Tom to finish when she passes on with the first part relating the story of the Conquistador. The film then moves forward again and into space as a bald man in a bubble travels towards a dying star with the tree of life.

It is not your typical Hollywood science fiction story which is why Warners may have got cold feet once Brad Pitt dropped out. Its hard to think of a film in recent times which has divided people more than The Fountain did on its release. People fall into one of two camps with this one; they either absolutely love it or find it a pretentious piece of rubbish. When it was released the reviews were either giving it one star or four or five.

The film is an absolutely heart breaking story about the inevitability of death and coming to terms with it. The central segment set in 2005 is one of the saddest things I have seen on screen. The fact that this is so touching can be attributed to the performances by Jackman and Weisz. Jackman in particular reveals previously hidden depths as a man who is torn between spending the remaining time he has left with his dying wife or working all hours to find her a cure. It is here that the film has its most heartbreaking moments especially a scene, which is repeated later on, where Izzy asks Tom to take a walk with her in the snow but he is too busy. In all three time zones visual motifs are repeated and the most common image is that of someone moving down a tunnel towards a bright light.

The final scenes are where the film truly becomes something special and the climax is something that can be perceived several ways. Could the final space scenes be what Tom wrote as the end of Izzys Book? Has Tom really lived on into the future by using the tree of life’s properties on himself? Its one of those movies which you can talk about for hours afterwards and every time I have watched it I find a new element that adds to the interpretation.

Special mention has to go to the music by Clint Mansell whose score is one the best from a film in recent memory. The special effects work is also very impressive for the reduced budget that they worked with. Aronofsky decided to not use a lot of CGI for the space scenes and instead used Macro-Photography of chemicals and bacteria, which now form the scenes of the dying star.

Although a more expensive and epic version of the story would truly be something to behold, the lower budget actually works in the film’s favour. The central themes and emotion of the core love story are not overwhelmed by the scenes of epic battle that were intended in the original script.

Sadly when The Fountain was finally released back in November 2006 it didn’t exactly set the box-office alight and disappeared after a week. The advertising campaign was seemingly non-existent. When it came out in the UK , despite the generally better reviews here it played in only one cinema in London. It’s a real shame as this is a film that deserves a wider audience and to actually get more people talking about it whether they love it or hate it.

Trivia: The original script which was abandoned in favour of a lower budget version was actually published as a graphic novel by the DC Comics/Vertigo label.