"The Fountain" dir. Darren Aronofsky

Wow. I really fucked up on this one. I had meant to see this in the theaters months ago and just got too lazy. i feel sorry that i did. I just watched this film tonite and i'm utterly blown away. I think i had goosebumps for more or less the entire film. Every shot was something that my body reacted to in a heart tugging sort of way, like Darren Aronofsky was pushing all of my personal aesthetic pleasure buttons. LEt me get this out of the gate right away, in hopes that i don't repeat (although given to my own kind of hyperbole, i'm sure i will): this film is staggeringly beautiful. It's beyond stunning. I can't believe that this is the product of one person, but in another way, i can. I like Aronofsky a lot-i think he's an amazing director, i will even say an autuer-who goes deep into the feelings behind his films. He pulls his images and his mise-en-scene out of some deep primordial emotion pool inside himself and what he comes out with is always amazing, like a painting spilling onto film, completely alive and dancing with you. In "Pi" it was paranoia rendered in stark black and white; in "Requiem for a Dream" it was total emotional and physical devastation in tense/terse, ultra sharp colour; in "The Fountain" it's love and hope breaking down boundaries of space and time, flying through a world that is beyond heavenly and somewhere far beyond the surreal. There are so many gorgeous images in this film, several times i was near tears (i shit you not.) So as a piece of directorial accomplishment, it's breathtaking. But as a film, whole and complete, i have to think of it as something of a flawed masterpiece. Please don't get me wrong-i am not trying to say this is a bad film-it is not-but there are some missteps. Largely, for me, the problem is dialogue and characterization. What conversation there is is incredibly generic and not much deeper than a wading pool, which is unfortunate given the philosophies that the film itself is working with. I guess it's probably because Aronofsky wrote the screenplay and this time he didn't have a magnificent book as source material as he did with "Requiem." The there's the characters. I had a hard time feeling any attachment to them at all, even though they're going through some pretty heavy shit. In "Requiem", again, i felt like i was right there with everyone and watching their lives turn to shit was almost unbearable. Those people were real to me. What was happening was terrifying. In this film we're gievn mere sketches that are supposed to pass as our emotional beacons and footholds and it just doesn't work. The love is supposed to transcend time and space, and while on an intellectual level i know what Aronofsky was going for, he didn't make me really feel it, aside from the wrenching power of the images. Complaints are now over with. I think the beauty of this film is reason enough alone to see it. I bought it, and i'm glad that i have it because i'm certain i will return to it again and again. The art Aronofsky has created will not diminish despite the flaws. I think you should see this movie, i really do...it's achingly beautiful. I haven't seen anything like it in a long time. Maybe ever.