Tree for Two

The Fountain. Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz, and Ellen
Burstyn star in a film written and directed by Darren
Aronofsky.

Reviewed by D.J. Palladino

Has there ever been another filmmaking era in which the
“geniuses” are given so much rope with which to hang themselves,
and as a result promptly do so? Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut,
Scorsese’s Gangs of New York, Malick’s The New World, and now this
mess from an auteur barely out of his thirties with total artistic
control of his third film.

Undeniably there is an art film look to The Fountain, with its
palette of tans, blacks, golds, and sudden bursts of white. It is
averse to narrative, and most of the settings seem like
claustrophobic mind spaces because the film is an idea, and a
half-formed one at that. Aronofsky tells the story of a Spanish
conquistador and an American research surgeon both inching their
way toward immortality potions. To tell his story, he jumps across
the eons via a work of fiction, daring to suggest that the only way
we immortalize ourselves is through the act of creation. No
duh.