“The Fountain”:http://www.netflix.com/Movie/The_Fountain/70051673 is one of those films that will either move you with the resonance of its themes and technique or bore you to tears as a derivative movie that deep down shows us nothing new, but does so in an elegantly beautiful manner. I’m solidly of the former opinion; but as I’ve had more time to mull over what it is I like about the film, the more I am convinced about the validity of the second argument, thus turning me into someone who usually has to defend it to others, while at the same time acknowledging the detractors have a point.
I love “Aronofsky’s”:http://www.netflix.com/Movie/The_Fountain/70051673 habit of giving us the denouement as the last scene of a film. It’s like a bittersweet pill that leaves us breathless and wanting more as the credits begin to roll. The Fountain’s Soundtrack, written by “Clint Mansell”:http://www.myspace.com/mansellclint (Kronos Quartet and Aronofsky’s Requiem For a Dream) with a little help from Mogwai, absolutely blows me away. It would have been a much lesser film without it. I listen to Death is the Road to Awe in the car on my way to work into Los Gatos everyday. I wonder what that says about my state of mind in the morning, or about the nature of what I do for a living? Probably nothing.
For Aronofsky fans, this is his best but most flawed film to date. It is the anti-Requiem film that is less a punch to the gut and more an exploration of basic human emotion like fear, grief and love that binds us to each other, in the hope that it leads to a more examined life.
