Defying Death To Save A Life

The Fountain

The New York Sun, November 22, 2006

Darren Aronofsky's "Pi" was, for all its indie buzz and critical approval, muddled, pretentious, and, at roughly 80 minutes in length, roughly 80 minutes too long. His no less pretentious second effort, the morbid "Requiem for a Dream," won even more awards (and, to be fair, a deserved Oscar nomination for Ellen Burstyn) but combined dazzling direction with leaden storytelling, preachiness that would embarrass the Drug Enforcement Administration, and, most unforgivably, ghastly treatment of pretty Jennifer Connelly.

Mr. Aronofsky's latest film,"The Fountain," has so far faced a more mixed reception from the critics (it was booed at the press screening of the Venice Film Festival earlier this year), but for his audience, at least, it may be third time luckier (lucky would be too strong). If an hour and a half of "Pi" called for cocktails, the only reasonable response to "Requiem for a Dream" was a stiff hemlock. By contrast, this latest Aronofsky should leave you soothed, relaxed, and mellow. Think nap. Think Windham Hill Records circa 1986. Think marijuana.

The plot may be as ludicrous as it is ambitious, and the philosophical premise that underpins it is ultimately a downer, but as gorgeous image follows gorgeous image and Clint Mansell's mesmerizing score pulls you in, it's difficult not to be beguiled. Needless to say, it doesn't hurt that the movie's stars, Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz, are exceptionally easy on the eyes.

Of the two, Mr. Jackman has the meatier role (or, more precisely, roles).To start with, he's Tomas, a 16th-century conquistador sent to New Spain by the embattled Queen Isabel ( Ms. Weisz) to find the legendary Fountain of Youth. Inconveniently enough, this turns out to be a tree located somewhere in the jungles of the Mayan hinterland, leaving poor Tomas the task of finding a very small needle in a very large and dangerous haystack. All he has to help him are a peculiar map, a determined friar, and the questionable support of fellow conquistadors clearly appalled by the prospect that Mr. Aronofsky's soft-edged movie might be turning into a remake of Werner Herzog's "Aguirre: The Wrath of God." Throw in an onslaught by those few Mayan warriors not already enrolled in Mel Gibson's forthcoming "Apocalypto," and it all becomes a little awkward for our luckless Spaniard.

Fast forward more than 400 years and Mr. Jackman reappears, this time as Tommy Creo, a scientist desperately looking for a cure for the brain tumor that is killing his wife, Izzi ( Ms. Weisz, again). As I understand this movie, Tommy is not the same person as Tomas, although Mr. Aronofsky has suggested, a touch ambiguously, that they represent different aspects of the same character. It is true that for two people living hundreds of years apart they do seem to, well, overlap a lot.

Yup, it's a puzzle, but let's not let that stop us from skipping on another 500 years and renewing our acquaintance with Tommy, except now he's Tom, kitted out like Grasshopper from "Kung Fu" (shaved head and all), and hurtling through the galaxies in a transparent globe that seems more Christmas decoration than spaceship. It appears that Tommy Creo did indeed discover the secret of eternal life (Guatemalan tree bark), but not in time to save Izzi, and, no, that's not a spoiler: From the moment we first encounter her, she has photogenic death written all over her photogenic features. Now, 500 years later, for reasons I can't be bothered to go into, Tommy/Tom is set on transporting a sickly Tree of Life to the Xibalba nebula, an equally sickly nebula that may or may not be the site of the Mayan underworld. I did mention, didn't I, that this movie's plot is ludicrous.

Other than the ailing tree, Creo's only other companion in his globe is an apparition that is either Izzi's ghost, an extremely persistent hallucination, or, who knows, both. Either way it involves Ms. Weisz standing around looking beautiful, wise, and mysterious, which is very much how she also plays the living Izzi and the long since perished Queen Isabel. As roles go, these are not the most demanding, but as they are considerably more flattering than what Ms. Connelly was put through in "Requiem for a Dream" (significantly, perhaps, Ms. Weisz is the director's fiancée and has thus, presumably, managed to keep on his good side), Ms. Weisz will probably have kept any complaints to herself.

But if the dying tree, or dead Izzi, or immortal Tom don't have much to say (he's too busy meditating and munching on Guatemalan tree bark) that leaves us free to concentrate on the bewitching, sparkling, glorious black and gold of Mr. Aronofsky's vision of deep space, a black and gold that echoes the candle-lit chiaroscuro of Queen Isabel's court. It's a color scheme that recurs throughout the film, providing a welcome note of continuity for a movie in which the narrative repeatedly jumps backward and forward in and out of three eras.

As visions of space go, it is, like so much of "The Fountain," simply lovely to look at, but Mr. Aronofsky's Hubble-influenced, almost organic spirals and clouds (suitably enough, the director dispensed with CGI and arranged for the special effects for these sequences to be brewed in a petri dish) also fits nicely into what passes as this film's overall message, a message that might owe something to its director having listened a little too often to the simpering mysticism of the Beatles' "Across the Universe."

More specifically, Mr. Aronofsky wants us to feel better about dying. This film seems to reflect his belief that modern man spends too much time, effort, and spiritual energy dodging the coffin. He offers us instead the role model of the saintly Izzi, calm, accepting, and perfectly content to ignore Dylan Thomas and instead "go gentle into that good night." Frantic Tommy's insistence that science can somehow devise an alternative, less fatal, solution is portrayed as grossly insensitive, and is obviously designed to show that, when it comes to confronting the Grim Reaper, our technological society has its priorities badly skewed.

If it does, this hardly makes us unique. So far as I'm aware, a keen interest in staying alive has been present in every culture since things went so wrong at Eden, and I believe that, with the exception of the lemming, the rest of the animal kingdom feels much the same way. Judging by this movie, Mr. Aronofsky, however, does not, preferring instead to believe, like Peter Pan, that death is "an awfully big adventure."

But then, he's still on the right side of 40.