Reimagining Death: A Closer Look at Darren Aronofsky’s “The Fountain”
I have to start this post off by saying: if you haven’t already seen The Fountain and you want to experience an existential crisis of some sort, please see it now! The Fountain (2006) by Darren Aronofsky dives heavily into the concept of death and rebirth. This movie aims to create an emotional connection and attempts to engage the audience in a conversation surrounding their own views on mortality. From the nonlinear and psychologically complex plot to the amazing visual effects, this movie is a must-see!
The movie begins during the Spanish Inquisition. It opens up to Hugh Jackman’s character, Thomas, and quickly cuts to Rachel Weisz’s character, Queen Isabella. Already giving us a great starting cast.
The plot is segmented into the past (set around the early to mid-1500s), the present (present year, probably early 2000s), and the future (set around the year 2463). All three segments are created into individual stories depicting the same themes surrounding death, rebirth, and the search for eternal life. So think of it as an anthology movie.
Let’s dive a bit more into the plot starting with the past. A Spanish conquistador, Thomas, searches for the Tree of Life by order of Queen Isabella. The Tree of Life is located in the jungle of New Spain, which is surrounded by the Mayan civilization. Once in the jungle, Thomas has to battle the Mayans in the hope of fulfilling his duties to his lovely queen. Oh boy.
Moving on to the present day, a couple, Izzi and Tommy Creo (Rachel Weisz and Hugh Jackman again folks) are trying to find a way to save Izzi from dying. She has a brain tumor and luckily Tommy is a scientist.
How convenient!
He ends up using the bark from a tree (ironically the Tree of Life) to create a cure. But unfortunately, before Tommy can give the cure to Izzi, she dies.
Now in the future (the year 2463), Tom (Hugh Jackman again), travels through space in a biosphere bubble containing the Tree of Life. Tom attempts to reach the nebula of a dying star (referred to as “Xibalba” by present-day Izzi) to help the tree bloom and become fruitful.
One important aspect that connects these three different storylines, is that they are mentioned in Izzi’s book that she wrote (in the present-day timeline) titled “The Fountain”.
What I love most about this film is the integration of the nontraditional visual effects. They draw you in causing you to question your own values in relation to the themes presented in the film.
Yes, this movie is a huge self-reflective mirror, and yes it will make you think about your life choices.
Darren Aronofsky creates a world in which it is easy to process the complex concepts of life, death, commitment, and love through the grand gestures of special effects.
There is so much of showing not telling in this movie that it forces the viewer to actively participate and actually interpret the plot and the message of the film. I mean have you seen, Black Swan? Another one of Aronofsky’s great mental exercise films.
Now that I’ve given you an overview of the plot, let’s discuss the two characters (Rachel Weisz and Hugh Jackman) that each segment centers around. The dynamic between the two involves love and the devotion (mostly from Hugh Jackman) that follows it.
An overarching theme throughout each plot segment is the fear of death and the process of searching for immortality. Basically, the different variations of Thomas are obsessed with creating an alternate way of cheating death and finding an eternal life with the woman he loves. But honestly, who doesn’t want that?
Tommy’s obsession with finding a cure to death leads him to miss out on the little time he has left with his wife, Izzi. There is a specific scene from the present-day storyline that I love in which Izzi asks Tommy to take a walk with her.
This is repeated throughout the film signifying Tommy’s regret over not having been able to spend more time with her. In this specific scene, Izzi is dressed in all white, to symbolize her hope and her acceptance of her own death. Once Izzi is gone, Tommy goes through the stages of grief and the viewers are introduced to the film’s second theme of Loss.
There are two ways that Loss is experienced in this film. The first is by Tommy losing Izzi, and the second is by Izzi dealing with the potential loss of her life through writing a book that would later aid Tommy in his stage of acceptance.
In this book, Izzi uses research based on the Mayans to accept her eventual death and the possibility of her rebirth. As I mentioned before, this book is titled “The Fountain” (big surprise). But it is based on Mayan mythology of creation (another big surprise).
The Tree of Life in the movie symbolizes the Mayan’s Axis Mundi (access point between worlds). The Mayans referred to this other world as Xibalba, which is located in the dark waters below the earth by day and turns into the sky at night.
You can also find a reference to the Tree of Life in the bible as well. It seems that Aronofsky takes from the story of the Garden of Eden as a potential ending place for Izzi and Tommy. Yet as with the story, Tommy and Izzi can not truly get there as they take life for granted (mostly from Tommy’s end).
Near the end of the movie, the conquistador version of Tommy enacts this attempt to reach the symbolic Garden of Eden by taking the sap from The Tree of Life for himself (although it was meant for the queen version of Izzi).
Since he took the gift of life selfishly, he could not put his token ring on (which connected him to Queen Isabella), and he ends up being drawn into the earth and killed. Just a warning to the wise, make sure when you are on a mission for someone else, be sure to bring it back to them before you try it yourself.
The Tree of Life is a huge metaphor that has been seen in so many films and books. It is also a reference in Nietzsche’s theory of self-creation and rebirth. Nietzsche concluded that life is a series of changes.
It seems that Aronofsky has the same theory as he displays Tommy and Izzi in three different cycles, each reborn, and ultimately hashing the same problems as the former cycle. What is horrible is that Tommy doesn’t learn to change his ways until after Izzi dies in the second cycle.
Another major part of this movie is how Aronofsky comments on the complex relationship between nature and technology. He sets up the film as a way to express questions surrounding mortality and how technology affects the idea of immortality. I mean we are already working on multiple ways to make people live longer, so why not be immortal?
The film also raises questions about the use of technology and whether or not it obstructs psychological growth or if it helps. It is more an attitude toward technology and whether humans are using it as an aid or as an equal to the human species.
If you want to explore this concept further please go see Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (that is, if you can to stay awake through it).
As with many other sci-fi movies, The Fountain, plays on the issue of the human quest for knowledge and the abuse of the earth that follows in the wake of this quest. This can be seen as Tommy keeps desiring to advance his biotechnology as a way to overcome his grief and to prevent death.
His fear of death is so immense that he doesn’t truly understand that in essence, it is a natural progression of life.
I know I mentioned this earlier but ultimately this film goes through the various stages of grief. From conquistador Thomas and his quest to conquer and control the unknown through denial and anger.
Then to present-day scientist Tommy who deals with his desire to understand the unknown through bargaining and depression. Finally to future Tom, who reaches the final stage of acceptance of the unknown.
The style of the film lends a lot of help in understanding the themes of grief, death, rebirth, and loss. There is a huge juxtaposition of light and dark elements in this film that symbolize both the chaos and order that life has to offer.
My favorite example is at the beginning of the movie where conquistador Thomas is kneeling in a dark area and then the shot quickly transitions to an almost luminescent close-up of Queen Isabella.
In most of the scenes, a version of Tommy can be seen in the dark and Izzi in light. Which shows how much Izzi’s character symbolizes the hope and acceptance part of life. While Tommy reflects the dark desperation from being out of control of life’s journey.
There were also a lot of CGI shots that were held in the same contrasting respect of light and dark. Some examples are the scene in which the biosphere bubble containing the Tree of Life flies through space and the scene in which future Tom practices Tai-Chi (he basically is a black figure against a bright starry sky).
Overall, Aronofsky’s style and approach toward provocative concepts like the dynamics between nature and technology and his desire to create an emotional/psychologically compelling argument for the importance of life cycles will forever make this movie one of my favorite cerebral sci-fi films. So if you have some time (and popcorn), get on your couch and rent this amazingly trippy movie and bask in all of it’s intellectual, existential glory.
