The Fountain

The Fountain (Darren Aronofsky, US, 2006) ★★★★

What’s the definition of eternity? Is it to find a way to keep oneself living in this world? Or to be reborn with different forms continuously? Director Darren Aronofsky, who got famous for “π” (Pi) and “Requiem for a Dream, ” continues his same experimental visual style and brings out his thoughts on eternity with a love story.

Tom is a doctor who never finds the way to cure his cancer-suffered wife, but Izzi doesn’t fear of the fact that her life is going to end. Instead, she craves to catch every moment being with her husband. Only that Tom can’t see this and keeps bury himself in the research, hopes that his wife could stay by his side forever. Even after reading the story “The Fountain” which his wife wrote, he still can’t realize her perspective towards to life.

In the story, Maya Empire in the 16th century started to be invaded by Spain Empire. Tomas went to find the secret of immortality in the Mayan legend with the queen’s order and her ring. He finally climbed to the top of the pyramid after a hard battle by himself. And the story stops at the blink of the gate keeper who swung his blade to Tomas’ neck.

In the Mayan legend, people’s bodies become everything in the universe after dying, and Izzi dreams of the saying of becoming birds which can fly between heaven and earth the most. She tells Tom about this legend, trying to let him know that death doesn’t need to be feared, on the contrary, it’s a hope of letting oneself to be reborn. Before Izzi can’t finish her story in time, she asks Tom to finish it, and it becomes a mind journey of discovering life for him.

Aronofsky’s jumping editing style makes the film keep a sense of mystery. Three parts that seem irrelevant finally become one point in the end. Tom put himself in the universe and lived with his wife who transformed into a tree. The time of getting immortal life finally comes, form upgrades into spirit. It keeps Tomas from being killed by the gate keeper and also let him to experience the meaning of being “eternity” after being greed of immortality.

In this stunningly beautiful but with extremely serious topic film, Aronofsky’s language and image might not that easy to be digest. But if willing to go into his state which he creates especially, inside the extreme elegant vision and the melt-into-soul score is the other side of death, a life that keeps cycling like a fountain, it’s an eternity makes people want to have.