Death as a form of creation

Happy Thanksgiving!

Now for my review on The Fountain.

As I sat waiting for this movie to begin, I was shaking. Well, maybe not totally shaking, but squirming in my seat, anxious for what was about to begin. I have been waiting months, maybe over a year for this movie. I can't remember when I first heard about it, but I have been dying. I saw Requiem for a Dream and Pi in high school and Darren Aronofsky instantly became one of my favorite directors. I have been following this project ceaselessly since day one, and now, finally, I was sitting in the theater, and the turn off your cell phones thing was playing.

The Fountain... woo wee. To sum it all up, it was everything I could have hoped for, and nothing I expected. That line has probably been used before. The Fountain was as innovative, original, and genius as anything I would expect from Aronofsky, and yet like nothing I had seen before. After leaving, I LIKED the movie, but was not head over heels for it. And then I started thinking.... ok, don't think of this movie as you think of most movies that are released. I started thinking of it as rather a dissertation on life and death, and a way to look at death, a happier way if you will, put to film. The movie is not THE STORY of Thomas through history trying to find a way to save his wife. It's the theory that death is a form of creation, and from everything that dies, that energy springs forth and can help or create something else. Of course this is an obvious natural law of the universe, but no one really thinks about it, much less makes movies about it.

I can totally understand why people might be turned off by the movie. (though the people at the showing I was at that were incredibly audible in their leaving of the movie was absolutely unnecessary, you can leave a movie, you don't need to act like a bull in a china parlor walking down the stairs) If you go into this movie expecting that story I was talking about before, you will be disappointed. If you let yourself be treated like a person with a brain, you will love this.

There is so much I loved. I loved how all the tenets of a great movie were there. There was conflict, there was character development, there was plot. But it was all done so differently. They are big ideas, but there isn't a twist in this movie or anything like that. But the way the end works, the ingenious way the Present Day and Future Thomas's come to learn that death is OK, make me think of those late 90's, early 00's movies. Like where it goes back to where Thomas has the choice to work with the monkey or go to spend time with his dying wife, and he chooses the latter. Ok, maybe it's not at all like Memento or any of those, but the story was expertly crafted as any of those.

The smaller things... the music was beautiful, especially the music set during the 26th century, with the electronic overtones. I do not know when I last heard music this good. Clint Mansell is brilliant.

The visuals, the art, the nebula. I cannot say enough about this without reusing expressive adjectives. It is simply the single most beautiful movie I have ever seen in terms of visuals.

That first scene in the Mayan Temple, the violence as Tomas moves forth. The four minutes that the Inquisitor was in the movie, and yet I want to see a film based around that whole character.

If I had any gripes, it might be that the movie drags in the middle, where the melodrama mounts. That's it.

I had some personal issues this past summer about death, dumb stuff like that. This movie struck a personal note with that, so again, another reason I am enamored with this movie.

I feel awful this movie is getting shellacked by critics. It shouldn't be. It is superb, and yet, in all likelihood, we will be lucky to ever have a movie with the artistic genius that this movie had to come out in a long long while. The local independent movie chain isn't even playing this movie. They have four theaters throughout town, and not one is playing this, not even the one that plays larger releases. I don't understand why AMC is playing it, and yet the indie chain that prides itself on not playing Hollywood schlock isn't playing one of the smartest things to come out of Hollywood in ages. It's almost enough to make it not like them anymore, but there's nowhere else to go for indies and fake indies.

It's really really sad after seeing this movie. I look at the list of movies I am going to see in the future, and there's some really really good ones, yes. But there is nothing like The Fountain, and I am truly afraid there never will be again. I will just hold out hope that young geniuses like Aronofsky, PT Anderson, and Christopher Nolan are allowed to continue crafting these ridiculously awesome movies, that crap like Hostel, Nameless Remake, Soulless Urban Dance Movie, and Vapid Animated Film don't ruin film for the rest of us.