The Fountain (2006)

I went to go see this film earlier today after my classes let out.
Strangely, I was the only one in the theatre. The weather's been bad all day so I suppose that is partly to blame (even at 6:25 when I left there was no one in there except two workers).

Anyway, on to the film.

Adding to what Akira, Encephalon, kat and killmoms have all said, the music was wonderful. But I expected no less from an Aronofsky flick. The scores in Requiem for a Dream and Pi have not only defined perfect ambiance, but in RfaD's case, been used for other things.

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.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by kat

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.

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.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Dee

Must agree to that scene. I had emotions filling, no tears, up until that part. Even throughout

Spoiler:

Izzi's death

I was trying really hard not to.

My point of view can be taken a few ways.

Spoiler:

One is that the three time periods are reality, Tom is reincarnated (as seen by his numerous added on tattoos in the future), and in every life he fails to save his wife or find the tree. He must learn to accept, and when he does, the cycle seemingly stops and he changes the "future". For instance, the scene when Izzi asks him repeatedly to come walk with her in the snow. In the last scene, he finally does. Are there two parallel universes? Another instance, in the future, he sees a visionary of her and he finally "let's go" and dies in grace (by dissolving).

Another I see is similar to kat's logic. It's the present, and the past is made up by Izzi. Only the present is real. The future, I also think is moreso grounded in reality (by the tattoos). The tree is a symbol of Izzi. But what I don't get is why he eats the bark.

I've got to get my hands on the soundtrack now. I really enjoyed the movie. A lot of people who came to see it with me didn't enjoy it as much and didn't even want to bother to talk about it. I'm just glad I went to see it when I could. I think this is Hugh Jackman's best work.

As far as the OST goes, look a few posts up. Enceph links it.

As far as your ideas go...

Spoiler:

The past is fictional. It always has been, and there's no denying it once you see that it was Izzi's book all along.

The "future Tom's" tattoos I viewed as signifying his age. It reminded me of those age rings that trees have, and I'm thinking that the designs around them were significant in other ways.

If you want to view that reality as having really happened, then there's the possiblity that he's been hanging on to her death for the 600 or whatever years that it's been. He keeps replaying the moments back in his mind now that he and Izzi are headed towards Xibalba. Like I mentioned a few posts back, the tree could be the one that Tom planted in Izzi's grave using a seed from the Tree of Life. That seed then created a second tree, and Tom's been using it to keep on living until he can take her to the nebula to be reborn like in the Mayan mythology.

Otherwise you can view it all as a metaphor and their trip to Xibalba to be reborn was just Tom's being coming to terms with the death. Maybe he died then as well; maybe only in death could he be reborn and start a new life.

The final moments with the conquistador, where Future Tom is seen floating in that pose (what's it called?) was either him finishing the book in the present, with his soul's determination represented by Future Tom; or him finally finishing the book hundreds of years after Izzi's death.

One thing that took me by surprise and I forgot to mention before:

Spoiler:

The part where the conquistador drank the sap and started to sprout leaves. Did anyone else see that coming?

I've been trying to figure out if it meant something besides the obvious reference to the tour guide's father becoming a tree after dying.

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