The Fountain (Darren Aronofsky, 2006)

[Fletch F. Fletch]

Drugs are bad? But seriously, I think that Requiem was a pretty interesting adaptation of it source novel and certainly visually incredible with some very strong performances (from Jared Leto -- who woulda thunk?) but it feels like a natural progression to whatever The Fountain is going to be. He seems to be heading towards that.

I've had the same discussion with avid film friends here in Melbourne and no disrespect intended, I believe the "drugs are bad" argument to entirely miss the point of the film.

Actually, I was just offering a flippant response to Barmy's post but I do agree with your analysis of Requiem.

[Barmy]

I love ZARDOZ. If it is half as good as ZARDOZ, it is a masterpiece.

But Darren, dear, shut your piehole. "Requiem" was "slaughtered" by the press??? It has a 77% rottentomatoes rating with innumerable rapturous blurbs. That interview is pathetic--it's standard for a director to say "oh I KNEW the press would hate it" whenever the crix react negatively.

Oh, and Darren claims Variety dissed "Requiem". Here's what they said:

Darren Aronofsky applies formidable talent and technique to off-putting material in "Requiem for a Dream." Working with name actors and a bigger budget, but in the same semi-experimental narrative vein as in his eye-opening 1998 debut "Pi," helmer confirms his promise with an imaginative approach to sight and sound -- but he's clearly sorting out some personal issues in his sophomore picture that won't prove appealing or accessible to many viewers. Commercial prospects are slight.

...

Beginning with some split-screen work and elaborate jump-cutting to convey the progress of events rapidly, he and editor Jay Rabinowitz introduce reiterated montages of specific images to indicate mood alteration. Presented over and over again, these become somewhat tiresome, but it also becomes clear that their very repetition is meant to replicate the cyclical nature of drug taking, just as it mirrors the numbingly repetitive nature of the techno and hip-hop music (often complemented by original string compositions played by the Kronos Quartet) that's constantly droning in the background on the soundtrack.

By the end, the film's elaborate visual strategies pay off in a cleverly conceived, and undeniably powerful, montage that reveals all the characters in extremis upon hitting rock bottom. It's technically striking filmmaking, to be sure, but what it's presenting is nothing that many people will want to look at.

Beyond the muscular display of technique, pic gives hints that Aronofsky has talent as a director of actors. Burstyn and Leto are often trapped by the straight tracks on which their characters are placed, but together excel in the film's quietest, most sustained emotional scene, a mother-son reunion in which he calls her on her pill-popping only to be rebuffed by her rationalization that the hope of the TV show gives her something to live for.

For her part, Connelly, a distinctly limited actress in the past, lets go physically and emotionally far more than she ever has, to surprisingly good effect, while comic performer Wayans comes across as appealing and natural in his first dramatic film role.

Craftwork is aces across the board, with a sound mix that's particularly dense.

[soma]

Actually, I was just offering a flippant response to Barmy's post but I do agree with your analysis of Requiem.

Yeah I kind of figured that whilst posting, hence the no disrespect

Just trying to debunk the most common dismissal of Requiem I've encountered - and I do feel you're being short-sighted Barmy.

[Lino]

Twitch reviews it.

[HarryLime]

From salon.com

All I can say is...oops.

Toronto Film Festival

Audience too sapped to boo Hugh Jackman in "The Fountain"
By Stephanie Zacharek

Sept. 12, 2006 | TORONTO -- Everyone loves a winner, but sometimes even a loser grabs the kind of attention money just can't buy. Darren Aronofsky's "The Fountain" -- the filmmaker's first movie in six years -- was reportedly booed at the Venice Film Festival when it played there last week. Apparently, many of us in Toronto wanted to know what all the hooting was about, which made the lines for the first press screening of the film inordinately long. I just squeaked in, nabbing one of the last five seats in the theater, in the very first row. I was so close to Hugh Jackman's face, I felt as if I could go spelunking in his pores.

Part historical fantasy, part lovers-separated-by-death weeper, part New Age fever dream, "The Fountain" isn't truly horrible, just very, very silly. When Jackman plunges his dagger into the hairy bark of the Tree of Life, a viscous, milky substance trickles out -- the source of all life! Best to have a tissue handy for this kind of thing. Jackman plays a doctor-researcher type who's desperately trying to shrink a tumor in a lab monkey's head. But before that, he's a Spanish guy around the time of the Inquisition, fending off savages with pointy teeth in a battle sequence that's like "Lord of the Rings" lite. And in between, he's a bald guy meditating; occasionally, he takes a break to eat some of that magic tree bark.

Jackman is tortured because somehow -- and we don't know exactly how at first, although we can guess -- he has failed his wife, played by Rachel Weisz. Weisz has the unfortunate task here of having to play the role of noble queen, both literally and figuratively: She plays both an Inquisition-era ruler who's being persecuted for being a heretic and a doctor's wife who's not so much loved by her husband as merely adored. (Weisz is married to Aronofsky in real life, which perhaps explains the very high pedestal he's got her perched on.) Weisz is a terrifically gifted actress, but you wouldn't know it here, at least partly because of the wackadoo dialogue she's stuck delivering. When she gives her husband a gift of a fountain pen and ink -- the camera shows us clearly what the items are -- she adds narration for extra punch. "Pen and ink," she says. And then she adds, helpfully, "For writing" -- just in case we're not clear on the concept.

Aronofsky can't just show; he also has to tell. And then tell again. He seems to be trying to fashion an intensely romantic fable, but the picture feels dried out and leaden. (It looks that way, too: Shot by Matthew Libatique, who also shot Aronofsky's earlier features "Requiem for a Dream" and "Pi," the picture has a dehydrated, grayed-out demeanor.) No one in the audience booed at "The Fountain," but I wonder if that's because we were just too sapped to bother. There has got to be a better way to get your audience thinking about eternal life than making them feel they just sat through it.

[Matt]

How cute is it that Stephanie Zacharek is unable to actually review the film because she's so in awe of her own cleverness? Mind your ego, dear. Mustn't trip over it.

This is, after all, the woman who said of The New World: "Terrence Malick may not care much for people, but he never met a tree he didn't like."

[miless]

How cute is it that Stephanie Zacharek is unable to actually review the film because she's so in awe of her own cleverness? Mind your ego, dear. Mustn't trip over it.

This is, after all, the woman who said of The New World: "Terrence Malick may not care much for people, but he never met a tree he didn't like."

"not care much for people"
whaaa?
is she retarded (I mean mentally handicapped) or something

[Christmas Cyclops]

"not care much for people"
whaaa?

She had to make up about the stupidest thing one can say about a director for the sake of her zinger.

[Steven H]

All I can say is...oops.

Don't you love it when someone follows an "all I can say is" with paragraph after paragraph of... plot synopsis? I was expecting it to end at "oops" and was dissapointed (there are a lot of ways to call a movie "boring" and "silly", apparently). I bet she's fun in person, though, like Chevy Chase.

[soma]

This is, after all, the woman who said of The New World: "Terrence Malick may not care much for people, but he never met a tree he didn't like."

That's gold! Making her opinion worthless in 3, 2, 1...

[HarryLime]

No, sorry, I've given the wrong impression in my post. The "all I can say is...oops," comment is mine, not Stephanie Z's.

I admit my hopes are not high for this film. And although I don't want to take a critic's side in these matters--any critic--I can't help but feel this review just might be the first of many like it. (Booing at Venice being another indication.)

But hey, I'm open-minded: maybe the milky-tree-substance-of-life business will knock me out of my seat. Move over, Virgin Spring!

[Matt]

If it's half as good as Crank, it will be a masterpiece.

[Antoine Doinel]

Scott Tobias from the Onion blogs:

First up was Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain, which may well be the artiest film released by a major studio since Solaris, and not in a good way. I appreciate Aronofsky's audacity and vision; with its intense, unrelenting miserablism, Requiem For A Dream pushed the form nearly to the breaking point. The Fountain isn't nearly as in-your-face (to its detriment, really), but it goes out on a limb again, interweaving multiple timelines and even a peculiar metaphorical bubble to tell a story about the search for eternal health. Yet for all its considerable pretensions, it's really just about a guy trying to stave off his wife's death. This entails Hugh Jackman weeping a lot, sometimes with no hair. Only the closing minutes hit the operatic highs of Requiem; the remainder is tedious beyond reason.

[Barmy]

CineClick raves:

Una salutare, coraggiosa, barocca boccata d'aria fresca in un festival che sembra penalizzare un cinema che ri-crea la realtà, viceversa favorendo film in cui è la realtà che con freddo calcolo si fa cinema: davanti alla "maniera" della poetica della serratura dell'ormai superato Tsai Ming-Liang salutiamo con gioia la vitalistica e sincera arroganza di Darren Aronofsky.

[The Invunche]

Can I get a pizza with that?

[Jeff]

Una salutare, coraggiosa, barocca boccata d'aria fresca in un festival che sembra penalizzare un cinema che ri-crea la realtà, viceversa favorendo film in cui è la realtà che con freddo calcolo si fa cinema: davanti alla "maniera" della poetica della serratura dell'ormai superato Tsai Ming-Liang salutiamo con gioia la vitalistica e sincera arroganza di Darren Aronofsky.

Systran translates:

One healthy, brave, baroque fresh air puff in a festival that it seems
to penalize a cinema that recreates the truth, viceversa favoring film in which is the truth that with cold calculation makes cinema: in front of the "way" of the poetica of the lock of by now exceeded Tsai Ming-Liang we greet with joy the vitalistica and sincere arrogance of Darren Aronofsky.

I too, greet with joy the vitalistica and sincere arrogance of Darren Aronofsky!

[Fletch F. Fletch]

Wired magazine's piece on the long, checkered history of the film.

[Fletch F. Fletch]

The Austin Chronicle interviews Aronofsky.

[Barmy]

During a Q&A for "The Fountain" in Atlanta, Director Darren Aronofsky talked with a handsome producer and the cadre of boys from C.H.U.D. about his next project - an English-language biblical epic.

"It's something I've wanted to do for a long time. Before Pi. Probably ten years ago, I had an idea. Actually, I wrote a poem about it when I was in 7th grade. I won this award for it -- my first writing award. So it's a story from the Bible that kind of stuck with me" says Aronofsky.

He added "About ten years ago I was at a museum that featured an exhibit that reminded me of it. So we've been trying to crack it for a while, and we finally figured out a direction."

As for his "Lone Wolf and Cub" project? "Paramount never got the rights. And we developed a script, but now the rights don't exist".

[Fletch F. Fletch]

This site has 9 clips from the movie that you can download 'n' view.

[Antoine Doinel]

Saw this tonight at a packed preview audience and the first thing I have to say is that this is going to be a hugely divisive film, and I hope that the discussion on this board can remain relatively civil.

My immediate thought on the film is that it's one of the bravest releases by a major studio and boldest statement by a single director in a long time. Much of one's appreciation of the film will come by whether or not the viewer is willing to completely let go and embrace the film on its own terms. Aronofsky has crafted a visually stunning, narratively complex and philosophically heavy observation on the nature of life, death and what comes next.

What will divide audiences most is how much of the film draws upon Eastern religion and essentially posits that death is not an end, but a beginning. That it does this relying more on visuals and minimal dialogue puts a further demand on an audience and at least the crowd that I was with was not ready to try and unravel the film's themes themselves. Furthermore, the "romance" at the core at the film is never exactly resolved in a traditional sense; however audiences may not be willing to accept how he ends the picture.

When the credits started rolling, baffled guffaws greeted the screen while I remained just stunned in my seat. My gf was even more affected by the film.

One of the best and most original films of the year.

[jon]

That is what I have been waiting to hear, I can't wait to see it.

[John Cope]

I hope that the discussion on this board can remain relatively civil.

Like hell!

[Tribe]

Not to veer entirely off course...but what ever happened to Aronofsly's production of Flicker?

Tribe

[Antoine Doinel]

Not to veer entirely off course...but what ever happened to Aronofsly's production of Flicker?

Tribe

Aronofsky announced that his next film will be a "biblical epic" based on a poem he wrote in 7th grade and that he'll probably make Flicker after that.