Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain features a trio of interlocking stories, each hundreds of years apart, all about a couple (played by Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz in each installment) coming to terms with being separated by death—and culminates in a wild whatsit of an ending. In the movie's present-day timeline, a doctor named Tom labors feverishly to find a cure for his wife Izzi's brain tumor. She's written most of a book in which a Spanish conquistador searches for the Tree of Life at the behest of his queen; meanwhile, in the future, a cosmonaut heads for a distant nebula in a biosphere containing the Tree, interacting with Izzi's spirit along the way. It all ends in the cosmonaut's fiery death, the Tree's rebirth, and an ending in which Izzi's spirit hands Tom fruit from the Tree…which he plants in her grave.
It's all deeply symbolic, obviously, and anyone hoping for a literal explanation out of The Fountain will be somewhat frustrated. But it's acquired a growing cult following over the years among viewers willing to puzzle with what Aronofsky's admitted is a "Rubik's cube" of a story that's ultimately really about coming to grips with our own mortality. He told AICN:
"It's a film that's a journey and it's a trip and it's an experience through the meditation of a lot of these questions. There are ideas in there that I believe, but I think I wanted to leave it open, so that anyone can bring their own beliefs to the table, and that it could awaken them, and people can have a conversation. Just like when we all used to sit around in college, or wherever, with friends just bull****ting about, you know, 'What is the world and why are we here?' That's what this film is."
BY MATT GOLDBERG
I adore Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain. It’s one of my all-time favorite films. I get something new from it every time I watch it, and I watch it at least once a year. I’ve listened to Clint Mansell’s score countless times. The film features Aronofsky at his most earnest and operatic, and while the film flopped when it was released ten years ago, it has gone on to gain a cult following.
The film lays out the three narratives as existing in three time periods: 1500, 2000, and 2500. So if you saw the trailer, you would assume that’s how Aronofsky structured his film. While it’s clear that what’s happening in “1500” is Isabel Creo’s (Rachel Weisz) story “The Fountain” about a conquistador who travels to find The Fountain of Youth in order to empower his Queen, and that in the year 2000, Tommy Creo (Hugh Jackman) is a scientist searching to find a cure for his wife’s illness, we’re left to assume that in the year 2500, “Tom Creo” (as he’s referred to in the credits) is now traveling in a spaceship of some kind with the tree that has allowed him to extend his life.
But that’s not actually what’s happening, and the “future” Tom Creo isn’t in the future at all. There’s nothing in the film itself to suggest that the year is 2500 or a future of any kind. In fact, all of the evidence points to something far richer but more complicated: The Tom Creo we see in the bubble is Tommy Creo’s mind.
It’s understandable that some people would think The Fountain is a story that deals with time. Some have even gone so far as to create a “linear” cut that puts the film in “chronological” order. And I get that. If this is a story about The Fountain of Youth, then one would assume that a character who discovered The Fountain in the form of the Tree of Life, would be living in the distant future.
Except The Fountain isn’t about The Fountain of Youth. It’s about death and creation and reconciling the two. The film even takes time to point out how the two are intertwined when Isabel talks about Xibalba:
Izzi: This is an actual Mayan book. It explains the Creation myth. You see that’s first father. He’s the very first human.
Tommy Creo: Hum. Is he dead?
Izzi: He sacrificed himself to make the world.
[pause]
Izzi: That’s the tree of life bursting out of his stomach.
Tommy Creo: Hey, come.
Izzi: Listen. His body became the trees’ roots. They spread and formed the earth. His soul became the branches rising up forming the sky. All that remained is first father’s head. His children hung in in the heavens creating Xibalba.
Tommy Creo: Xibalba. The star, eh,
[corrects himself]
Tommy Creo: Nebula.
Izzi: So what do you think?
Tommy Creo: About?
Izzi: That idea. Death as an act of creation.
For Tommy, a doctor who has dedicated himself to stopping death, he can’t fathom how death could be an act of creation. After Izzi dies, he angrily tells Dr. Lillian Guzetti (Ellen Burstyn), “Death is a disease, it’s like any other. And there’s a cure. A cure – and I will find it.”
The arc of The Fountain isn’t about a man who found The Fountain of Youth or The Tree of Life, ate its bark, and lived to be over 500 years old so that he could rejuvenate the Tree in a dying star. To assume that the scenes in space bubble are literally happening deprives The Fountain of its central conflict, which is about Tommy accepting death and using that to fuel the creation of finishing Isabel’s novel.
When we see Tom Creo in the bubble interacting with Izzi, they’re not preludes to flashbacks. They’re thoughts interfering in Tom’s mind. For Tom, he can’t finish Isabel’s novel because to do so would be to accept her death. “Finish it,” are the worst words to him because if the novel is unfinished, then Isabel’s work, and by proxy Isabel, lives on. He literally can’t close the book on their relationship even though her dying wish was for him to finish the novel.
The climax of the film is Tom learning to accept death, something he has refused to do throughout the story because it’s too painful. When he finally accepts it, we see Tom Creo interact with Tomas’ storyline in the novel “The Fountain”. That scene isn’t Tom teleporting back in time to reveal himself as “First Father” to the Chieftain. What we’re witnessing is an act of creation. Tommy (in the present day) is finishing the story, and the “future” Tom is his mind penning that creation. He changes Izzi’s ending, which had the Chieftain killing Tomas and instead the Chieftain sacrifices himself in the presence of a figure he believes to be “First Father”.
What Aronofsky is showing us isn’t a guy in the distant future getting hit by an exploding nebula. He’s showing us in the abstract the act of accepting death and how it can lead to creation. Tom is now penning the end of “The Fountain” where Tomas reaches The Tree of Life, greedily drinks its sap to heal his wounds, and then is overwhelmed by the power of the Fountain, and dies in its thrall. Like Isabel’s story, it’s autobiographical. She began it as a tale about a woman hoping that her beloved could save her, but Tommy ends it almost as a mea culpa. For Tommy, Tomas is undone—much like he was—by refusing to accept death and chasing eternal life at his own peril.
Of course, how do you sell that in a 2-minute, 27-second trailer? How do you tell audiences, “Hey, all this cool stuff with bald Hugh Jackman in a bubble going through space? That’s actually an abstract representation of the character’s mind as he learns to accept death and finish his late wife’s novel. Coming soon to a theater near you!” It’s much easier to say, “Yeah, this is just three time periods. Roll with it.”
It was an easy sell that did a disservice to the story Aronofsky was trying to tell. While some may argue that The Fountain romanticizes the ugliness of death, it could also be argued that raging against the inevitable shortens our lives in ways we can’t perceive. Instead of enjoying the first snow with the person we love the most, we push them away because we can’t face the pain their death will bring. For The Fountain, we can only move forward after we’re willing to embrace the end.
From Collider
The Fountain Explained
BY JOSH TYLER
It’s neither a critical or box office success, but Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain is the kind of movie that serious film-o-philes will be talking about for years. The title of this article is actually misleading, because no one except perhaps Aronofsky can explain the film. It’s intentionally obtuse, and part of the genius of it is the way every person who sees it will get something completely different from it.
What’s really happening in The Fountain? My interpretation is that the past is the story written by Tom’s wife, and then finished by Tom in the final moments of his life. The present is of course real, and the future is too. It’s a true science fiction movie, Tom uncovers the secret to immortality to late to save his wife, and uses it to stay alive for centuries while looking for a way to resurrect her. Future Tom and Present Tom are the same person, and Past Tom is Izzy’s interpretation of the real Tom’s attempts to cheat death, and when Tom finishes the book he writes the Conquistador’s demise as sign of his acceptance of Izzy’s belief that death should be embraced as a way to become a part of nature and the universe. Tom the Conquistador turns into a hedge. When future Tom is disintegrated in the stuff of stars, he has chosen to abandon his quest to save his life, and instead travels back in time to do over her few remaining days on Earth.
But that’s just my interpretation. There are others. The only way to get a feel what this movie is, is to examine some of the reactions of others. I’ve scoured the web and posted a few of the most interesting ones below.
First up, Chris Null from FilmCritic.com. Chris is one of those people who hated the movie, and if he’d been at Venice I imagine he might have booed. He believes that “…the three men are not really the same person over the 1,000 years. Aronofsky would like us to believe there's a huge mystery to unravel here, but it's not really the case.” All three Toms are completely separate individuals? No wonder he didn’t like the movie.
Harry Knowles over at Aint-It-Cool-News had the exact opposite reaction. He believes that not only are there not three separate Toms, but that two of them don’t even exist. He says,“To me, there is only one reality – the story that takes place here and now. 500 years ago is in Izzi’s book – a fictional book written by a woman that loves her husband and wants him to be her conquistador – questing for his queen to win eternal life and defeat the eventuality of death. What is that future? Izzi asks Tommy to finish the book. To me, that is this man of science’s take on how he would be reunited with her. He would find a way to live forever, till science could take him to that nebula where Izzi believed her soul would go and be waiting for him, and he would be reunited.” I don’t share Harry’s reaction, but his interpretation is certainly a beautiful one.
Groucho at Groucho’s Reviews has only questions. He says, “Are the three timelines an expression of reincarnation? Maybe. Time travel? Of a sort. Or does the whole film take place in the present, as a man struggles to come to terms with his wife's death? She has authored a fiction of the past; is the film's future story merely Tommy's vision of the final destination of his obsession?” I hadn’t considered the possibility of reincarnation being a central theme. Isn’t Aronofsky a hardcore Christian?
Robert W. Butler at the Kansas City Star seems to agree with Harry. He thinks the future is just another part of Izzi’s book. Robert says, “The key to solving this puzzle may rest in the contemporary story, where the dying Izzi has written a manuscript for The Fountain. Part of Izzi’s book takes place in the Mayan empire, and she has left the final chapter unwritten; Tommy is to complete the book after her death. Presumably the conquistador passages and the man-in-a-bubble stuff represent what’s in the book.” For me, that just doesn’t fit. The man in bubble stuff wouldn’t fit in a conquistador book, when Izzi’s ghost tells Tom to “finish it” in the future, she’s telling Tom to finish the book, and Tom finishes the book by having the Conquistador fail. In my mind, the future must be real.
Eric Melin from Scene-Stealers has an interesting take on the nature of the tree in Hugh Jackman’s future bubble. To me, the ending of the film suggested that the tree is one which grew out of Izzy’s grave. But he believes differently. Eric says, “Jackman is a bald journeyman encased in a clear bubble, moving through deep space with the fabled Tree of Life to keep him alive and visions of Weisz (as both women from the past, or perhaps not) as both company and affliction.”
Ultimately though, understanding what’s happening in The Fountain may not even matter. Edward Douglas from Coming Soon says, “The big mystery lies in how the different segments tie together, whether they're real or part of Izzy's novel, and it uses a number of recurring images to blur that distinction. For instance, images of Izzy are often intertwined with that of the Tree of Life, which is a living entity that reacts to touch and sound. Whether the Tree in the future is the same as the one in the past is another mystery, and the viewer's understanding that there isn't just one answer or interpretation will greatly enhance their ability to enjoy the experience. It's not important to completely understand how everything ties together, because it's more about absorbing as much as possible as it washes over you and soaks into your consciousness.”
Edward’s right. You don’t have to understand The Fountain to take something away from it. Arnofsky wants his viewers to question it, to talk about it. He says, “It’s so often that you’re home the day after you saw a movie and you can’t remember what the hell you saw the night before. But then sometimes you see movies that just stay with you and create a conversation and I think that’s always been a goal to try and do something like that.”
A lot of people simply don’t and won’t get it. The answers aren’t all spelled out there for you, and besides, some people only go to the movies for escapism. But great film can be much more than blockbuster fun. The Fountain is the kind of movie that, love it or hate it, will knock around in your head for years to come. What’s your interpretation?
What’s really happening in The Fountain? My interpretation is that the past is the story written by Tom’s wife, and then finished by Tom in the final moments of his life. The present is of course real, and the future is too. It’s a true science fiction movie, Tom uncovers the secret to immortality to late to save his wife, and uses it to stay alive for centuries while looking for a way to resurrect her. Future Tom and Present Tom are the same person, and Past Tom is Izzy’s interpretation of the real Tom’s attempts to cheat death, and when Tom finishes the book he writes the Conquistador’s demise as sign of his acceptance of Izzy’s belief that death should be embraced as a way to become a part of nature and the universe. Tom the Conquistador turns into a hedge. When future Tom is disintegrated in the stuff of stars, he has chosen to abandon his quest to save his life, and instead travels back in time to do over her few remaining days on Earth.
But that’s just my interpretation. There are others. The only way to get a feel what this movie is, is to examine some of the reactions of others. I’ve scoured the web and posted a few of the most interesting ones below.
First up, Chris Null from FilmCritic.com. Chris is one of those people who hated the movie, and if he’d been at Venice I imagine he might have booed. He believes that “…the three men are not really the same person over the 1,000 years. Aronofsky would like us to believe there's a huge mystery to unravel here, but it's not really the case.” All three Toms are completely separate individuals? No wonder he didn’t like the movie.
Harry Knowles over at Aint-It-Cool-News had the exact opposite reaction. He believes that not only are there not three separate Toms, but that two of them don’t even exist. He says,“To me, there is only one reality – the story that takes place here and now. 500 years ago is in Izzi’s book – a fictional book written by a woman that loves her husband and wants him to be her conquistador – questing for his queen to win eternal life and defeat the eventuality of death. What is that future? Izzi asks Tommy to finish the book. To me, that is this man of science’s take on how he would be reunited with her. He would find a way to live forever, till science could take him to that nebula where Izzi believed her soul would go and be waiting for him, and he would be reunited.” I don’t share Harry’s reaction, but his interpretation is certainly a beautiful one.
Groucho at Groucho’s Reviews has only questions. He says, “Are the three timelines an expression of reincarnation? Maybe. Time travel? Of a sort. Or does the whole film take place in the present, as a man struggles to come to terms with his wife's death? She has authored a fiction of the past; is the film's future story merely Tommy's vision of the final destination of his obsession?” I hadn’t considered the possibility of reincarnation being a central theme. Isn’t Aronofsky a hardcore Christian?
Robert W. Butler at the Kansas City Star seems to agree with Harry. He thinks the future is just another part of Izzi’s book. Robert says, “The key to solving this puzzle may rest in the contemporary story, where the dying Izzi has written a manuscript for The Fountain. Part of Izzi’s book takes place in the Mayan empire, and she has left the final chapter unwritten; Tommy is to complete the book after her death. Presumably the conquistador passages and the man-in-a-bubble stuff represent what’s in the book.” For me, that just doesn’t fit. The man in bubble stuff wouldn’t fit in a conquistador book, when Izzi’s ghost tells Tom to “finish it” in the future, she’s telling Tom to finish the book, and Tom finishes the book by having the Conquistador fail. In my mind, the future must be real.
Eric Melin from Scene-Stealers has an interesting take on the nature of the tree in Hugh Jackman’s future bubble. To me, the ending of the film suggested that the tree is one which grew out of Izzy’s grave. But he believes differently. Eric says, “Jackman is a bald journeyman encased in a clear bubble, moving through deep space with the fabled Tree of Life to keep him alive and visions of Weisz (as both women from the past, or perhaps not) as both company and affliction.”
Ultimately though, understanding what’s happening in The Fountain may not even matter. Edward Douglas from Coming Soon says, “The big mystery lies in how the different segments tie together, whether they're real or part of Izzy's novel, and it uses a number of recurring images to blur that distinction. For instance, images of Izzy are often intertwined with that of the Tree of Life, which is a living entity that reacts to touch and sound. Whether the Tree in the future is the same as the one in the past is another mystery, and the viewer's understanding that there isn't just one answer or interpretation will greatly enhance their ability to enjoy the experience. It's not important to completely understand how everything ties together, because it's more about absorbing as much as possible as it washes over you and soaks into your consciousness.”
Edward’s right. You don’t have to understand The Fountain to take something away from it. Arnofsky wants his viewers to question it, to talk about it. He says, “It’s so often that you’re home the day after you saw a movie and you can’t remember what the hell you saw the night before. But then sometimes you see movies that just stay with you and create a conversation and I think that’s always been a goal to try and do something like that.”
A lot of people simply don’t and won’t get it. The answers aren’t all spelled out there for you, and besides, some people only go to the movies for escapism. But great film can be much more than blockbuster fun. The Fountain is the kind of movie that, love it or hate it, will knock around in your head for years to come. What’s your interpretation?
From CinemaBlend
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