The Fountain (2006)

Watched it on Wednesday and absolutely loved it; the visuals were fantastic, the plot was amazing and the score was mindblowing. But personally I think it's a love it or hate it movie, there's little middle ground. I saw it with my family and out of us 4, only I really liked it and they all hated it.

Spoiler:

Was anyone surprised on how the actual story played out? I really thought it would be more science fiction with the tree of life and quest for immorality over 1000 years when it was simply a fantasy tale with scenes from Izzi's book and Tommy's attempts reflected in them to save her in each time period. Not that the trailer was misleading but I really saw it differently.

Did anyone cry? I was pathetic, the music did it to me.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Matt

As far as the story goes...

Spoiler:

I'm kind of upset about the lack of information concerning the 2500 period. How'd he get there? What's that space bubble thing? Is that the same Tommy or a fictional one, made up by the 2000 Tommy to place in the end of Izzi's book?

My thoughts on the whole shebang:

While sitting through the end, I had to assume that the person I saw on the screen was the Tommy from the year 2000, who used the tree to live as long as he had. The only real thing that separated him from another fictional story (like the 1500 "Tommy") was the ring tattoo. Without that there would have been no anchor between the time periods.

In a nutshell, I left the film thinking that Tommy had planted a seed in Izzi's grave and that later grew into the Tree of Life by means of the original tree's sap. Only this Tree wasn't strong enough to survive because it wasn't the original one, and died before it reached the star.

The 1500 conquistador was fictional, based on information Izzi found about the Mayans. Tommy later finished the story of her Fountain by granting the conquistador one last chance to live forever. And he did, only not as a man but as part of the earth. Much like the story of the Mayan tour guide's father. He became one with the earth, the bird, the tree, and etc.

So in the very end, though we never know how Tommy got there completely, how this tree of Izzi and he were transplanted in a "space bubble", they become one with the universe. Their absolute death was the road to absolute awe.

An absolute togetherness of absolute love?

At least, that's what I think.

Well this is what I thought about the whole movie

Spoiler:

The only reality of the film is in 2005, with Izzy dying writing her book and Tommy trying to save her with his research. Aronofsky has been quoted in interviews that the 1500 plot line is purely fiction, it's simply the story of The Fountain book and while 2050 is more abstract, I think it is Tommy's soul's journey into accepting Izzy's death. The tree of life in the space bubble and the hallucinations of Izzy telling him to finish it were simply his soul's torment and guilt of everything he felt in 2005, his quest to Xibalba to save the "tree" is a metaphor for Tommy's feverent research to save Izzy. When the tree died near the end, it reflects his own anguish of losing her. I didn't feel that the tree in the space bubble was the tree of life, more than Izzy personified as a tree.

At the end when he goes through Xibalba and when Thomas is killed by the tree of life (what an ironic sentence), it signals his acceptance that Izzy's gone. The planting of the seed at Izzy's grave is just a real reflection of that.

That's how I saw it anyways, for me the movie is more fantastical than science fiction.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by *AkirA*

Kats view makes alot of sense. The only other thing Id like to add is:

Spoiler:

Him planting the seed at the end was how Izzy would live forever. Its been a few weeks since Ive seen the movie, but I remember her telling him the story of the tour guides father living forever through a tree that grew from his grave. I thought that was what Tommy was doing for Izzy aswell.

I cant remember what he said at the end of the movie though.

Spoiler:

Yeah I agree with that, it's sort of his realization of Izzy's spiritual immortality as opposed to her mortal one. I just thought the movie was great how it tied in nature with everything situation.

Curious, has anyone seen it and not liked it?

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Matt

Hm yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Spoiler:

I was thrown off by the trailer when I went to go see the movie. During some parts I was thinking to myself "Why don't they show him eating from the tree and living through different things?"

I blame the PR department more than the film itself on that front.

I'm still wondering about the tree in present day, though.
We saw him operate on monkeys with tumors using the biological substance from the tree, so I'm assuming that the tree was, in fact, real.

Spoiler:

As I understand it, many present day medicines start with some sort of plant substance. In the Amazon and other places with dense fauna, there's a huge diversity of medicinal plant species and scientists are discovering specific chemicals and compounds in these plants which they distill, synthesize and base pharmaceuticals on.

This is way up in the research developmental stages of medicines and Tommy's job was probably that, collecting and researching plants and seeing their effects on subjects (IE: monkey). So it's not really that farfetched that there is, in fact, a "tree of life" in reality, but not in the conventional sense of the word. There is no literal tree that will grant immorality but at best simply stave off death and prolong life. As in the movie, the sample they used cured aging and shrinking tumors and while this is an extreme case, it's pretty grounded in reality.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?