The Fountain

Wow!?*

I could pull a Stuart here and leave everyone wondering how I really felt about the film but let me plow on despite barely being able to muster the words to bring this sucker to it's knees.

First the good: 1) Clint Mansell's soundtrack with assistance from the Kronos Quartet and Mogwai. 2) Quite beautiful cinematography (but you can get that from the 2 minute trailer that had me all aflutter about this film several months back) 3) At 90 minutes, even though it feels quite often like it's doing your head in, it's mercifully short. May I suggest to Darren Aronofsky that he return to the 2007 film festival to screen a 5 minute version of this hippy dippy piece of tripe.

For those of you that don't know the premise of this film, and I'm not sure I do after having watched it, it revolves around a modern couple Izzy and Tommy, with Izzy (played by Rachel Weisz) slowly dying of a brain tumor and Tommy (played by Hugh Jackman) as a cutting edge research physician working furiously to find a cure for what ails his wife. We also see the same two characters in what appears to be late 15th century Spain replete with a Torquemada like religious fanatic and in a third storyline which one has to assume is set in the future we see only Jackman's character, unamed and floating in space, replete with his own bubble.

This is far removed from the frenetic pace off Aronofsky's first two works, "Pi" and "Requiem for a Dream", the latter's screening of which at the TIFF actually saw an audience member suffer a heart attack. If the first two were seizure inducing quick cut wonders of late 20th century filmmaking then "The Fountain" for me can only be regarded as a throwback to the yoga loving, granola munching, psychadelic tripping days that I never experienced in the 60s. At one point in the last 10 minutes I thought for sure we'd be crossing over from the plangent strings of the Kronos Quartet to the prog-rock noodlings of Edgar Broughton or Hawkwind.

Sadly that never came to pass and as a result the whole po-faced seriousness of the film combined with the ridiculous closing scenes made me want to laugh. Of course being the polite Toronto audience that we are people actually applauded at the end.

In terms of mood the film reminded me very much of 2002's "Solaris" a film I enjoyed immensely and have watched many times over. Unlike "Solaris", "The Fountain" leaves you on the outside looking in. I honestly never cared what end was met by either of the two protagonists in any of their incarnations and even poor old Ellen Burstyn, who was terrific in Requiem, is wasted in her capacity as the hospital's chief.

I'm really not sure what audience this film is intended for. It appears to be big budget, what with the monolithic poster already up at Yonge and Dundas staring down at us in all its false solemnity, but your average Cineplex goer is not going to be interested beyond the good guys vs the Mayan Orcs opening sequence. As for his core audience I imagine they'll be mostly left scratching their heads.

Perhaps Hugh Jackman knew best, as Aronofsky pointed out the man is 15000km away dancing his heart out in something called "The Boy from Oz". Good on yer Hugh, I wish I could've tied me kangaroo down with you sport.