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[Sanjay]

i loved the soundtrack

 

[topsyturvy]

I love Requiem, but this was the worst piece of shit dressed as art since American Beauty.

HEY.....

THATS A BIG FUCK YOU.

 

[topsyturvy]

My understanding of the movie is that the man found eternal life within the deep jungles of South America (or Spain, can't remember). He brought this back to the queen, whom he loved. Centuries later, despite being immortal, his wife developed cancer and was going to die.

This meant an eternity of being alone for the man. He did not want this so spent every waking moment trying to find a cure.

Eventually her body could not cope with the cancer and died, however her mind lived on. This is why he planted the tree above her grave, so that after being transferred through its roots she would continue living. She became the tree. But he knew that the tree too would eventually die. That's why he was eating the tree so that she could live on within him.

Eventually enough time passed that the world itself went extinct. However, their little bubble of immortality continued to live and so the end was him trying to distinguish their lives together.

excuse me while i go laugh at that and this shitty movie as a whole.

 

[fortified_concept]

One of my favorite movies ever. Yes it's open to interpretetion and no just because you didn't understand it it doesn't mean it's bad or that the writer wanted for everyone to understand the same thing. Learn to watch movies people (aside from the usual mainstream hollywood crap).

 

[Bogus]

I like mindfuck movies, but not when their sole purpose is to be a mindfuck. I found The Fountain to be pretentious and overly melodramatic, with a fragmented style of storytelling that made it near-impossible to connect with any of the characters. That being said...

Spoiler

It seems pretty clear to me that the space sequence is a big allegory of what is happening in Tom's life. As Izzie (the tree) is dying, Tom practices Tai Chi and tries to come to terms with his wife's eventual death. He consumes a piece of the tree, symbolizing his desire for Izzie to live on inside of him as a memory. He could not save her, but he eventually does find a "cure" for death, which is symbolically represented as him destroying Xibalba, the cosmic nebula which the Mayans believed was the soul's final resting place. Since death ceases to exist, so does Xibalba. In the end, Tom finishes Izzie's book, making the character (whom he sees as himself) unwillingly sacrifice himself for the good of the world, just as Tom unwillingly had to watch his wife die (in a sense, be sacrificed) in order for him to come up with a "cure" for death.

But really, there's no correct answer, because the film went out of its way to obfuscate. It was the director's way of masturbating for an hour and a half without really showing us anything meaningful or interesting. It makes the viewer wonder what's going on in the context of the movie, but beyond that, it doesn't engage him at all.

And no, it's not that I just don't "get it." It's just not a profound work like some would have you believe. There's no deeper meaning here. Just a guy dealing with his wife's eventual death with an overblown extended metaphor wrapping it all up. Decent movie with an inflated sense of purpose.

 

[Dali]

One of my favorite movies ever. Yes it's open to interpretetion and no just because you didn't understand it it doesn't mean it's bad or that the writer wanted for everyone to understand the same thing. Learn to watch movies people (aside from the usual mainstream hollywood crap).

See this is the same attitude thetrin had and it is a really pompous one. To assume that people who don't like this movie hate it because they don't understand it or it is open to interpretation is assuming a bit too much. It just isn't a good movie to me. You make the assumption (same as thetrin) that these people aren't as bright as yourself and have an affinity for the usual Hollywood fare. You are only making yourself look silly and full of yourself by making comments like "learn to watch movies" and assumptions like the one's your post is filled with.

 

[.dmc]

And no, it's not that I just don't "get it." It's just not a profound work like some would have you believe. There's no deeper meaning here. Just a guy dealing with his wife's eventual death with an overblown extended metaphor wrapping it all up. Decent movie with an inflated sense of purpose.

Exactly. I thought that Tom and Izzie's story was amazing, but the past + future stories were awful. There is always a problem when you give a character a 'life work' be it musical, or written, or acting, when it comes of as naff it devalues their struggle, which is how I felt about Izzie's novel.

As for the interpretation from the OP, his acceptance of Izzie's death at the end of the film completely destroys any motivation for an 'immortal' Tom to begin a thousand year journey to resurrect her. You don't come to terms with her death AND spend millennia trying to resurrect her. It's either the final chapter of her novel, that Tom himself completes, or a dream/allegory for Tom's struggle to accept Izzie's death. It isn't literal.

 

[White Man]

I just watched Pan's Labyrinth tonight.

Best film of 2006, easily. I still loved it as much as I did the first time, which is more than I can say for The Departed and Children of Men. In ten years, Pan's Labyrinth will be the consensus best film of 06.

Oh, I liked Pan's Labyrinth, don't get me wrong. I just thought the marketing was hilariously misleading, and the Fountain had similarly misleading marketing.

 

[cubicle47b]

Spoiler

The only part of the story that's "real" is the present. The past is a look into Izzy's mind and the future is a look into Tom's. The future does seem like it could easily be a continuation of the present but Tom accepts her death and her way of looking at death at the end of movie when he plants the tree so it isn't.

I liked the movie both times I watched it. Probably more the second time. I have no idea how I'd come to terms with my death if I had cancer (or a loved one had it) but hopefully it would be with the kind of grace that Izzy had. And the "death as an act of creation" idea is a pretty one even if it's fluff.

 

[papelnabangka]

My interpretation of the movie was that all three timelines are all the same stories but was presented by the dominant or prevailing storytelling of their respective periods. Classic straightforward treasure hunting/exploration for the past(book, written, 2D), peachy lovestory(movie, moving images, 3D) for the present and abstract visual(whatever's in the future, 4D?) whatever for the future.

 

[esbern]

it was bad. that's all you need to know.

you are an idiot

 

[XMonkey]

I don't think anything definative can be said about that plot but didn't it look sweet?

Agreed. I happened to love the story, but at the very least I think people should be able to appreciate some of the amazing visuals the film gives us, even if they thought the story was shite.

 

[tekumseh]

I thought it was all a metaphor for him coming to terms with her death and letting her know he accepted that she wanted to let go.

BINGO!!! WE HAVE A WINNER!!!



Tell him what he's won, Johnny....

 

[Solo]

I can see how someone would not like/venomously hate it, but it still remains one of my favorites of 2006.

 

[Dali]

No offense, dude, but the fact that you wanted this movie to be some space action movie is kind of playing into the hands of these kinds of people. Sure, the marketing was misleading, but damn, how can you blame the movie for that?

I wanted it to be what it was advertised as, which wasn't space action but a love story that literally spanned ages. I wanted Bug to be a horror movie, does that mean I hate psychological thrillers?

I can't blame the movie for misleading advertising, but I came blame the movie for not being a good movie.

You did "get it" after one viewing. So how can you say:

I came to that conclusion after reading this thread and realizing that most people have their own idea of what the movie is about, but no one knows definitively. How can you not get something that basically has no correct answer. I do understand the gist of it though.

On the other side of the coin, you may not like it, but there's actually one interpretation that seems to have been intended for the movie, and it's the one that you and Iamthegamer got. So how can you say that it is a poorly-told jumbled mess?

I'm not too sure about that. I perused through it in like ten minutes yesterday. At the end Tom says "goodbye Izzy" and plants the seed. It was inaudible to me before, but it adds credence to the idea that the future was an allegorical dream. Just because I came up with some hypothesis as to what the movie may have been about doesn't make it any less of a jumbled mess.

 

[BlueTsunami]

I can see how someone would not like/venomously hate it, but it still remains one of my favorites of 2006.

No matter what though, no one can honestly say the score itself was bad. Beautiful music

I'm finally watching it this weekend too. Its good that I've been properly warned from everyone who has already watched it though

 

[BlueTsunami]

I thought of the future story as having very little to do with the narrative. It seemed best to be a visual metaphor for the other two plots. More like the idea presented in it's most abstract from.


From what I could gather he and the tree of life were being sent to revive a dying cosmos. There is both sacrifice, redemtion, death and birth as well as waiting for a long time. I don't think anything definative can be said about that plot but didn't it look sweet?

Seriously, I agree with you from the standpoint of this movie using visuals instead of narrative to bring its message across.

I loved this movie in that "it brought out emotions about something I've never really thought about" which is Cancer. Then theres the spiritual metaphors and visuals that shows how Izzi is coping with her coming death. I thought it was beautiful.

She wrote the story, all of it, just to help Tomas (Hugh Jackman) get through it all, to understand what shes feeling. She makes multiple attempts within the movie to make him understand but hes to hell bent on finding a cure he doesn't listen.

Having listened to the soundtrack about a week or so before the movie, it really stood out to me. I love it so much and adds a completely different dimension to the film.

 

[The Storyteller]

I enjoyed it, when I thought I really wouldn't. Sometimes I really like pretentious bullshit, this happened to be one of those times.
It helped that it was very pretty to look at.