THE FOUNTAIN

By
Victoria Alexander
FilmsInReview.com
victoriaa@theflickchicks.com
masauu@aol.com

I’ve taken the same entheogens many times. But I never cried.

My weekly column, “The Devil’s Hammer,” appears every Monday on FromTheBalcony.com.

A friend’s father died in a hit-and-run accident as he went to pick up a newspaper while his family waited for him to return to celebrate his 80th birthday. The candles were lit. As far as I am concerned, how auspicious! To die on your birthday is to complete a perfect circle! I’m sure this guarantees a much higher reincarnation. Someone should start a website called Same Day Birth-Death Registry.

“The Fountain” celebrates the regenerative power of death.

Who said Brad Pitt was an idiot? He backed out of ‘The Fountain” (over major creative differences but it must have been the constant crying required of the role) that forced writer/director Darren Aronofsky’s fiancé Rachel Weisz to save his shut-down project and replace female lead escapee Cate Blanchett. Originally with a $75 million budget, Aronofsky streamlined the budget to $35 million and cast Hugh Jackman in the lead.

I loved Aronofsky’s previously acclaimed films, “Pi” and ‘Requiem for a Dream.”

“The Fountain” is gorgeous to look at, evocative in its imagery, and Jackman is at his sexiest. But Jackman is required to spend the entire movie weeping. As a valentine, Weisz is an angelic presence not at all disturbed about dying. It’s a blessing!

Brilliant, cutting-edge but highly distraught research scientist Tommy Creo’s (Jackman) wife Izzy (Weisz) is dying of a brain tumor. Tommy is doing experimental brain research on chimpanzees using a compound he extracted from a tree in the rain forest. Tommy is looking for a “Fountain of Youth.” He wants to save Izzy’s life.

Since 2000 I have been going to the Peruvian rain forest to work with ayahuasca curanderos. There is indeed terror and awe in taking certain psychotropic compounds, but never tears. Apparently Aronofsky and I are working on opposing personal issues.

The story of Tommy and Izzy is linked through reincarnation to the Spanish conquistador Tomas (Jackman) who is also looking for the rumored treasure of immortality. Tomas has a much greater task than Tommy: He must help Queen Isabella (Weisz) save Spain. The Queen quotes Genesis, noting that there were two trees in Paradise: The “Tree of Life” and the “Tree of Knowledge.”

Except it was really “the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” (Genesis 2:9) It makes a big difference. Neither tree has anything to do with everlasting love.

Tommy’s emotional hysteria is having a debilitating effect on him – he’s hallucinating. The concept of time and place is blurred. Izzy, like all dying cancer patients, has gone totally mystical. She is at peace. She believes death – like a nebula wrapped around a dying star – brings life.

Izzy’s death liberates Tommy to come to his final incarnation as a pure spiritual being.

Tommy’s unhinged psychic life moves him through three states of being: Queen Isabella’s conquistador-killer, a lovesick mortal, and finally, a 26th century Samadhi Bubble Boy. As Tom, he has been transformed, in the tradition of The Trinity, into a bald, lotus-seated mystic bathed in the golden light of Nirvana.

If Aronofsky had just kept the focus on Tomas’ religious quest and The Spanish Inquisition’s damnation tribunals, perhaps his message of life and death redemption would have been more linear – and provocative.

Victoria Alexander lives in Las Vegas, Nevada and answers every email. You can contact Victoria directly at masauu@aol.com or by visiting www.FilmsInReview.com

THE FOUNTAIN
Warner Bros. Pictures
A Protozoa Pictures/New Regency production

Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Darren Aronofsky
Based on a story by: Darren Aronofsky, Ari Handel
Producers: Eric Watson, Arnon Milchan, Iain Smith
Executive producer: Nick Wechsler
Director of photography: Matthew Libatique
Production designer: James Chinlund
Music: Clint Mansell
Editor: Jay Rabinowitz

Cast:
Tomas, Tom, Tommy Creo: Hugh Jackman
Queen Isabella, Izzy Creo: Rachel Weisz
Dr. Lillian Guzetti: Ellen Burstyn

MPAA rating R
Running time -- 96 minutes

My weekly column, “The Devil’s Hammer,” appears every Monday on FromTheBalcony.com and on www.lasvegaroundtheclock.com.