Reviews: November 2006 Archives

The Fountain seems like a damned curious piece of work until you realize the likely circumstances of its creation. Unable to shake the germ of a great idea having to do with a fallen Spanish conquistador, the Mayan Tree of Life, and an astral journey toward a distant nebula that may be the entrance to the underworld, writer/director Darren Aronofsky forced a narrative opportunity, and then pursued that dream even as it seemed to be collapsing under its own weight. He’s made a film that's unlike anything else you'll see this year — clearly influenced by Kubrick, and perhaps by Tarkovsky and Bergman, it ruminates on the inevitability of death, spins mythology into some kind of psychological resonance, and doubles as a love letter to his life partner and mother of his child, Rachel Weisz. It's messy. It's also, to my eyes, more than a little silly. It's a work of huge ambition that has the air of grand folly.