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One reoccurring element in the films of Darren Aronofsky it is that his main characters are driven,
and often destroyed, by obsessions.
His debut film Pi featured a mathematician obsessed with logical patterns.
Requiem for a Dream is about the euphoria found in drug use and the obsessive addictions they lead to.
In Black Swan, a ballerina is obsessed with achieving the perfect performance.
And of all the biblical stories, Aronofsky chose to tell the one of Noah,
a man obsessed with an apocalyptic prophecy.
The Fountain too features a protagonist struggling with an obsession,
one that is perhaps the most universal of all.
Let's finish it.
The Foutain is famously ambitious in its presentation;
in the far future, an immortal man travels to a dying star where he hopes his wife will be reborn.
Along the way, he remembers what are generally considered to be the memories of his past self.
In these flashbacks, we see the story of Tommy, a man trying to save his beloved wife Izzi
from dying by finding a cure for her terminal illness.
It's time for you to read it.
In a third storyline, we are presented with Izzi’s unfinished book The Fountain,
which tells the tale of a Spanish conquistador in the 16th century on an expedition to find the Tree of Life.
Will you deliver Spain from bondage?
Upon my honor, and my life.
When you return...
Together we will live forever.
These storylines however aren’t neatly separated by time as the original trailer suggested,
but rather they flow into each other,
they are intertwined to the point where acts in one storyline even seem to affect the outcomes of another.
This is most obvious in the first story where future Tommy saves the conquistador
and pushes his quest forward,
but consider also how Tommy discovers what would eventually be his immortality formula
through a revelation caused by what appears to be a divine intervention.
remember that ethnobotanical compound we played around with last year?
Which one?
From that tree, that one from Central America.
It is this kind of interrelation between the stories that complicates interpreting the actual plot of the film.
Aronofsky stated he intentionally left it up to the viewer
to decide what parts of the story are a metaphor, and which are not.
I think it’s more of the fun of the piece of, you know, who’s actually exist, and who doesn’t exist,
and who’s a memory and who’s a story and, you know, what’s a metaphor and what’s not a metaphor.
Aronofsky compared the film to a Rubik’s cube that can be solved in multiple ways
but has only one solution.
Some have taken this to mean that the plot is a puzzle waiting to be arranged into one definitive interpretation,
but I think it rather suggests that no matter how you make sense of the plot,
the underlying meaning of the story remains the same.
And while it may be fun to discuss the different ways the story can be pieced together,
it is ultimately that deeper thematic current that gives us a real insight into what The Fountain is about,
the essence of which, I believe, is captured in one key scene.
Hey what are you doing here?
Take a walk with me.
I have too much work.
It’s the first snow, we always…
I know, but they’re waiting on me.
The choice to go with Izzi or continue his work is presented here as a distant memory,
one that Tommy isn’t ready to face.
Come on Tommy. - Please Izzi.
Again, how and when this story unfolds depends on your interpretation of the different storylines;
if you interpret the stories in literal terms,
we’re witnessing the tragic memories of an immortal man in the distant future.
But there are some interpretations that approach this future storyline as purely metaphorical,
a representation of Tommy’s subconscious as he struggles with the loss of his wife.
Either way, I can’t think of a better image of grief than a man drifting alone in a timeless darkness
The vision of his wife keeps haunting him, urging him to listen, and he finally accepts the invitation.
All right.
I trust you.
Take me.
Show me.
To me, the journey that follows feels more like a meditation
or even a prayer answered by a higher entity,
taking place outside the familiarity of time and space
where memories and desires, history and dreams, all flow into one.
Come on Tommy. - Please Izzi.
We are brought back to the choice, go with Izzi, or go to work.
While the lighting and religious imagery already hints at what choice should be made..
Tommy heads the other way, and so will we.
Going down this path, we find a surgeon striving to find a cure for his wife’s illness.
It’s an ambition that later, despite having made an almost miraculous breakthrough,
turns into a more obsessive battle against the very concept of death itself.
The Donovan breakthrough is our starting point, it's just a starting point.
Allright? Let's build on.
Stop aging, stop dying.
Stop dying, that's our goal.
In this sense, Tommy is a literal example of Ernest Becker’s death-denying human,
a denial that stems from the dissonance between having a spirit that is conscious, curious
and capable of forming deep connections,
and having that spirit be born into a body that is vulnerable to damage and sickness,
a body that will someday die.
This is the terror: to have emerged from nothing, to have a name, consciousness of self,
deep inner feelings, an excruciating inner yearning for life and self-expression
and with all this yet to die.
For Tommy, all these inner feelings and desires are embodied in the love for his wife,
a love that he is so attached to that he wants to hold on to it forever,
but to do so would mean he would have to conquer death.
As a consequence; he becomes trapped in the future;
stuck in a mental abstraction outside the present where his salvation, his eternity,
always seems just within reach.
We’re almost there.
I just need a little more time, okay?
There’s hope, there’s real hope.
We’re close, and I will find it.
There’s time, we have time.
It’s okay.
Everything’s gonna be all right.
Witnessing her husband’s growing obsession, Izzi, probably both out of love and frustration,
urges him to read her book about the conquistador named Tomas,
who is trying to save his queen from the invading inquisitor;
Yet another slice of her nation is mine.
Soon she will be powerless against me.
A not too subtle metaphor for Izzi’s experience with the illness slowly spreading inside her body,
and the husband who seems half a world away to complete an impossible task.
Just take a few days at home.
Spend a little time with Izzi.
I’m here, for her.
The book comes to an abrupt ending when Tomas finds the hidden temple containing the tree of life,
and is struck down by its guardian.
Pausing the film at the right moment gives us a glimpse at this final paragraph;
Tomas knows more clearly than he has ever known any other thing,
that he cannot beat this beast.
The pagan raises his sword above his head.
Staring into the flames Tomas sees the demons of hell feasting on his soul,
maggots crawling through his flesh, and the blade and the flame was falling towards him,
shuddering inevitably towards, his chest.
Tomas’ fear paralyzed him, all he would see was death.
It once again portrays Tommy’s view of death as something ugly,
something that has to be denied and evaded at all cost despite knowing the effort would ultimately be pointless.
Death is a disease, it’s like any other.
And there’s a cure, a cure, and I will find it.
And this is exactly where Izzi differentiates herself from Tommy.
Unlike Tommy, Izzi comes to terms with her mortality by accepting her life as a small piece
in the ongoing process of creation, which has allowed her to live in the present
where she, more than anything, longs for Tommy to just be with her.
Don't answer it.
Hello?
In the film, her worldview is inspired by ancient Mayan philosophy,
but it also clearly includes Eastern influences which are probably best articulated by Eckhart Tolle
who, in his book The Power of Now, writes;
To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness.
This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad.
All those things, of course, will still pass away, cycles will come and go,
but with dependency gone there is no fear of loss anymore.
I'm not afraid anymore Tommy.
It’s this almost Stoic acceptance that freed her from her mental prison,
which is also made clear by the fact that she wants Tommy to finish her book,
I want you to help me.
Finish it.
which not only serves as a way to help Tommy face his own mortality,
but also as a token of her own willingness to leave things unfinished,
to let go of her attachments and be fully present in the current moment,
whatever it may bring.
When I fell.
I was full.
Held.
The main point is not to advocate any specific worldview or philosophy,
but rather to show that death is a natural part of life,
something that we, in some way or another, have to cope with, because as Ernest Becker puts it;
To live a whole lifetime with the fate of death haunting one's dreams and even the most sun-filled days
- that's something else.
I want you to be with me. - I am with you, look.
As Izzi shows us, it is only when we find some way of reconciling with our mortality
that we can fully be present, that we can be whole and find some semblance of grace.
Most of us end up going out the way we came in; kicking and screaming.
But somehow, Izzi, young as she was, she achieved that grace.
And this brings us to the end of Tommy’s journey.
As he enters Shibalba, he finally acknowledges the truth that Izzi was trying to show him;
that death is not a force of evil, it’s not some distant abstraction,
it’s a presence that surrounds us always, from beginning to end,
like a golden nebula looming over our lives even in the most mundane moments.
What are you doing here? - Take a walk with me.
In a final convergence of the storylines, we are once again brought back to the choice,
but this time, Tommy embarks on a different path and chooses to be with Izzi instead.
Now realizing that his pursuit for immortality will not make him whole,
that it will only leave him detached, bringing nothing but suffering and despair,
Izzi's book is given a new ending in which the conquistador passes the guardian,
drinks the sap from the tree of life, and is subsequently killed by new life bursting from his body.
Again a not too subtle metaphor for Tommy letting go of his obsession
and allowing for something new, something more peaceful, to take its place.
It’s not exactly a grand revelation, but The Fountain was never really about that.
As one reviewer points out, the story is not about unlocking the secrets of the universe,
it’s about learning to live without them.
But I think more importantly; it’s an invitation to live our lives more consciously,
and in that sense; it’s a journey that relates to all of us.
A journey about how we can become so obsessed with our mental abstractions,
that we forget to experience what is actually happening.
Ernest Becker writes that; To live is to engage in experience
at least partly on the terms of the experience itself.
And I think this beautifully captures what Tommy learns at the end;
our lives are brief and to a large extent at the mercy of forces beyond our control.
The Fountain shows how easily we fool ourselves into believing we have unlimited time,
until we realize that we don’t.
It makes us aware of all the time that was given us;
a gift that we perhaps could have been more thankful of,
that we should have accepted with both hands instead of letting ourselves be distracted by everything else,
that we should always say “yes” to,
because as Eckhart Toll puts it;
What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is?
what could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now?
Surrender to what is.
Say “yes” to life.
While The Fountain originally failed to reach a wide audience,
it has gathered somewhat of a cult following over the years as more people discovered the film
and came to appreciate it.
Of course, there are still many such films out there waiting to be discovered,
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