I just finished watching it a few moments ago. Can't say I didn't enjoy the movie, but I also can't say that it's a great movie. I mean, great by Hollywood standards, maybe, but Aronofsky was swinging for a home run and delivered a solid double.
Let's get it out of the way before I criticize: in case you haven't noticed, I liked the movie. Aronofsky is 3 for 3 in my book and still one of the young directors people should give a dump about. Shove Wes Anderson up your asses; Aronofsky is the real deal. I applaud that he is still experimentiing wildly in just about every possible way. Aside from some of the esotericism of Pi, this is all new territory for Aronofsky, and potentially new territory for science fiction/fantasy, as I can not recall another genre movie offhand that did anything similar to this.
The kudos out of the way, let's get to the problems, and some of them are pretty major. This is Aronofsky's first problematic movie, really. Pi and Requiem are pretty much perfect movies (for what the are), and while that's a bit of a downer, we all knew the perfect streak would have to end sooner or later. Probably sooner. And it did.
First off, this movie is indulgent to the nth degree. This is a given, knowing the movie's troubled development history. If it was anything but a pet project, I am sure Aronofsky would have dumped it during the storied 6 years it took to get this film made. But not everyone is me, and they will see this and say "god damn this is one indulgent movie." And heck, I'm saying that and I did know the movie's history. I was prepared.
It's tough to decide where the line between ambition and indulgence gets drawn. For example, like a full half of the shots in this movie are center-framed. This probably has something to do with the movie's exploration of cycles of life and death, and the movie's attempt at a symmetrical structure. The fact that previous 2 sentences have to exist is the line.
Aronofsky plays with weighty themes throughout, and I could go on for pages about the references and whatnot that I caught, and I haven't even read the wikipedia entry yet. I am sure he crammed a ton of shit in there that I missed. The thing is, in The Fountain, dealing with these themes equates to rote repetition. Oh, that happened in the other storyline. Oh, this is analogous to that. Ooo, those two characters said the same line! That's a good device, and I am sure defenders will chock it up to the symmetrical structure, but it gets a bit worn when it's the main trick in the bag
I'd imagine that Aronofsky (and the people that love this film) would say it has a mandala-like structure or some such. That doesn't do anything for me. It's impressive and all, but I prefer my movies to be thought-provoking, or give viewers something to talk about at the end. This deals with its themes in such a simple way that prevents those from ocurring, really. It is a really, really obvious movie that thinks it is really, really deep.
The movie is also very brief. It's impressive that he crammed all of this into 90 minutes, but it definitely felt scaled back from something much longer. That I would like to have seen. I was somewhat disappointed to see that as the movie was crossing the hour mark, it was approaching its end. Maybe if it wasn't due to being scaled back, we'd have something more.
I feel like I am hating on it too much. I liked it a lot, but it wasn't all it could be. The only reason I expected more was because Aronofsky has given us more substance in the past. I'm glad this movie exists, and I am glad to own it (on BLU RAY). It just left me wanting moar in a not so good way.
In brief
- this movie looked really fucking good considering its budget. I'd like to see what Aronofsky could do with big money, but I imagine the bombing of The Fountain will make sure that never happens.
- Hugh Jackman is probably one of the best actors going today.
