Following the huge critical success of Pi and Requiem for a Dream, Darren Aronofsky used all his filmmaking capital to make The Fountain, a wildly ambitious parable about the search for eternal life.
In present day New York, neurologist Tom is frantically working on a breakthrough to save his beloved wife Izzi, who is dying from a brain tumour. In 15th Century Spain, a queen sends her conquistador to the central American jungle to do battle with the Mayans, seeking out the Fountain of Youth. And in the third millennium, a mysterious, zen-like man floats through the cosmos, searching for immortality. With Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz playing the leads in all three stories, what emerges is a film about two immortally bound souls, set over more than 1,000 years.
Beset by production difficulties – the film was originally supposed to cost $75 million and star Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchet, but ended up being made for half as much, with many of the film’s lavish sets auctioned off before they were ever used – The Fountain was savaged by critics and audiences on its initial release.
Self consciously epic in scope, with a clear debt to 2001, and full of recurring spiritual motifs lifted from the Mayans, the kabbalah, the bible and elsewhere, The Fountain has garnered a deserved cult following since its initial release, not least for its awe inspiring visuals and ambition.