A lot of people have been dissing (for lack of a better word) ‘The Fountain,’ Darren Arronosky’s latest film. It’s a little hard to see why; it’s a film with striking images, a simple but very moving plot and some fine acting. It is also very much a film in that it really is a story that works on the screen; you can’t really imagine this being a worthwhile graphic novel or stageplay but as a film it doesn’t just work, it constantly challenges exactly what you think cinematic work should be. It resembles, to my mind, the original ‘Solaris,’ a nominal SF film that was really just a careful examination of what it is to be human. ‘The Fountain’ asks the same questions about ‘death’ and the ‘want to live.’
I’m in two minds about ‘The Fountain.’ Is it last year’s best film or this year’s? It come out internationally last year but it only arrived here now… Whatever the case, it’s certainly going to be hard to beat.