The Fountain review

Fidelio said:
The Fountain is convoluted.
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Not really you just have to pay attention, which is something most movies in the past 10 years just doesn't require of it's viewers. (ie spiderman,xmen,pirates of the carribean, all no brainers.)
 
It wasn't that. I understood what Aronofsky was trying to do, but I felt that he was not conveying it very well with his transitions.
 
I thought it was quite beautiful and stunning. And heart-breaking. I thought he did a great job. He's definitely among my favorite directors, not only for his filmmaking skill and talent, but for his desire to take risks.

A story-structure guru friend of mine named Chris Vogler, has been working on something new with him. Hopefully something equally as off the wall...
 
Stunning visuals and a nice score but...

... OK, you have to die in order to achieve eternal life and be awed.

Why?

Cause the Mayans believed it and it has some nice references to the Bible.

So what?

Well, urgh... the Mayans are cool and mysterious and they just have the secret, you know, and they've had it for millenniums and now I'm gonna show it to you in the form of a nice three-layer movie-metaphor.

And what's the secret?

The secret is that ... urgh ... you have to die in order to achieve eternal life and be awed, cause the Mayans and the bible said so and the Mayans and the Bible are so cool, you know.

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Sorry, doesn't work for me, death is THE problem in life and movies alike, but I couldn't find my solution in "The Fountain".

The film is masterfully directed but the script sucks.

Or maybe I'm plain dumb, dunno. :grin:
 
Were you really expecting The Fountain to teach or reveal something that would change your life?

As shawneous said, I think you missed it.
 
jpeck said:
Were you really expecting The Fountain to teach or reveal something that would change your life?

As shawneous said, I think you missed it.
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No, I was expecting a good concept: a well exposed problem and a satisfying solution within the story.

In the Fountain:

If Death is not the problem, then what is?... And what is the solution...
 
Saw it six months ago, give or take. Whenever the DVD was released.

Don't remember a thing about it. Had a tree, right?

:)
 
Saw it awhile back and really disliked it.

I wouldn't mind seeing it again, but it just fell kinda flat imo. The visuals were terrific and probably the best part of the film for me.

The story made sense, but I thought it could have been done a lot more effectively if it was simpler. Not too say it was too confusing, I see what Aronofsky was trying to say. I just feel the confusion and complication in the story line was unnecessary and could have easily been told in a much simpler way than how Aronofsky chose to do.

Also, the characters weren't engaging to me. I truly didn't care about either of them, and so when 15 minutes into the film everything starts going down hill, I could have cared less.

As I said, I'd like to watch this again sometime, but I feel it got way too overhyped for me, and definitely wasn't as good as I was hoping.
 
I'm watching it for maybe the second and a half time. I don't care for theaters, as I miss too much via small distractions, so I got the DVD. That was the first time I tried to watch it. Even at home, there are way too many distractions, and I might have missed some key elements that brought it together and made sense. It was nothing at all like the commercial hinted, so that didn't help either. I had assumed that maybe Jackman and the conquistador were the same person over a few hundred years... ala Highlander. After the second time, I get the distinct feeling he is the Doctor in real life, the conquistador in her story. As for the tree in the bubble, maybe that is supposed to represent his guilt? It may have me lost worse than a road trip with no map, but it was very beautiful, and even might have been more moving if I weren't so busy scratching my head.
 
I have always thought the tree in the bubble was the doctor thousands of years in the future, after he had discovered the key to immortality. Yeah it's weird, but who's to say space travel in the year 4,000 won't be via transparent bubbles. Once we have complete mastery of the physical universe, anything is possible....As for the film, it feels like 2 thirds of a masterpiece. The other third is just missing. I think Aronofsky made too many compromises just to get this thing on screen.
 
Batutta said:
.As for the film, it feels like 2 thirds of a masterpiece. The other third is just missing. I think Aronofsky made too many compromises just to get this thing on screen.
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I can buy this. I think that 2/3 is way up there though. Visually and emotionally beautiful.

And I am huge fan of NOT explaining stuff like this and letting the audience figure it out, fill it in. It's so common now for films to ham-fistedly beat you over the head with literal explanations, set-ups, character "introductions." all that junk, that I find films which engage my imagination and make me wonder, extremely refreshing.
 
After even more thought, I almost see Jackman's conquistador as being a metaphor for his quest to cure his wife. I'm still not convinced the whole tree an a bubble theme wasn't just the Director's opium habit filtering in with his movie making.
 
If somebody asked me what my favorite movie is, I would probably answer 'The Fountain.'

I know it has its problems, like all movies do, but I love everything else about this film, the characters, the story, the lighting, the score. It may be because I took my time and figured out what everything meant and represented, at least what it meant to me, and after you can watch it and immerse yourself in that meaning, it just gets that much better.

And for those of you who haven't seen this on Blu-Ray, I strongly recommend it. The visuals will blow you away, and the score is much crisper.
 
I stumbled across this film one night during an introspective moment while tossing back a few... and for some reason it grabbed hold of me... and for a while I entertained the idea of love, and imagined what "true love" must feel like... if there is such a thing... and I gazed at the movie and listened, but made no real attempt to process any of it... and it felt like a subliminal connection to the deeper meaning... and I felt like I really "got it"... but I'm really not sure.

I didn't follow the entire movie... but from what I remember I thought that the fountain was love... like a pure and inexplicable substance... on which the tree was surviving... and that in the end it came back to the tree, at which point the tree was a metaphorical passage.

But then again... I don't remember the movie that clearly and maybe I was making it into something else.
 
MattinSTL said:
I stumbled across this film one night during an introspective moment while tossing back a few... and for some reason it grabbed hold of me... and for a while I entertained the idea of love, and imagined what "true love" must feel like... if there is such a thing... and I gazed at the movie and listened, but made no real attempt to process any of it... and it felt like a subliminal connection to the deeper meaning... and I felt like I really "got it"... but I'm really not sure.

I didn't follow the entire movie... but from what I remember I thought that the fountain was love... like a pure and inexplicable substance... on which the tree was surviving... and that in the end it came back to the tree, at which point the tree was a metaphorical passage.

But then again... I don't remember the movie that clearly and maybe I was making it into something else.
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you gazed at the movie? subliminal connections? deeper meanings? metaphorical passage?

bro, you don't sound like you were on beer, you sound like you were on something else...
 
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