Platter-like structures have gone from trendy to banal to tacky. This type of film, like many other forms of film, has two main themes: to express a feeling or to explain a truth. The former such as "The Best of Time", the latter such as many films in 2005 and 2006: "Syriana", "Babel" and this "The Fountain". Some of them are ingeniously connected, such as "Pulp Fiction", one of the originators of this type of film, and "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" which is slightly similar; The best time"; some are scattered, such as most doubles, tripples and even quad features: "Four Rooms", "Three Watches", "Eros", etc. But no matter how they are divided, most of the successful platters can be analyzed in the only way, and that is to find the similarities in these stories, that is, the dark lines during the passage.
Although "The Fountain" is secretive, it is not difficult for Orientals to understand. There has always been a huge difference in the philosophical beliefs advocated by the East and the West. In terms of form, most Western philosophies and religions are utilitarian and practical, so the form is mostly analytical; while the popular philosophies and beliefs in the East generally do not carry With this kind of color, it is chaotic and harmonious: Taoism says that it cannot be said, Buddhism says that Buddha cannot be said. These differences will ultimately boil down to the disagreement discussed earlier: "man will conquer nature" and "heaven and man are one." "Man conquers nature" is the default and unquestioned philosophical basis of most American films. So it's no wonder that heroism prevails in movies. Super heroes, Survivals, and Epics are full of enthusiasm and passion for life after watching it. So, from this point of view, "The Fountain" is also a different approach.
Let's try to analyze the main theme of the movie, let's look at these 3 stories:
1. Doctor Tommy's story on the quest for immortality.
2. The story of Doctor Tommy in another dimension with the Tree of Life.
3. The story of a Spanish knight on the order of the fallen queen to find the lost tree of life in Eden.
An obvious commonality of these three stories is that they are all related to "eternal life", but the author's attitude towards eternal life can be reflected from the development of the stories.
The doctor had a strong utilitarian color at first, one wanted to treat Izzi's illness, but more importantly, his own persistent pursuit of longevity. There are two endings to this story: one, the doctor insisted on his research and eventually discovered a drug to prevent the tumor from spreading, but it was too late; Still dead, but Tommy smiled and said he was going to finish the novel.
The story of the tree of life in the dream also happens to have two endings: First, the bald man holds his tree all day long, and eventually the tree withers, and the bald man goes crazy. . . ; Second, the bald man gave up the tree and climbed to the top, his eyes were bright, and his body flew up, as if he had won eternity.
The story of the last Hispanic also happens to have two endings, but these two endings are intertwined with each other, and there is a slight contradiction (1):
Ending 1: The knight suddenly became a meditating saint, and the native gave up resistance and dedicated his life to him. The saint turned back into a knight, killed the natives, greedily sucked tree sap, and died with flowers all over his body the moment he put on the ring;
Ending 2: The saint smiled with the ring and ended.
Listed this way, the similarities between the three stories are clear at a glance: in each story there is a near-identical choice: hold on or let go (perhaps Aronofsky would be happier to say "go with the flow"). Every time I choose to persevere, the ending is lame and ugly; but if I choose to go with the flow, the ending is beautiful and elegant. So, as said before, Aronofsky made the philosophy of "the unity of man and nature" overcome the philosophy of "man must conquer nature" in this Hollywood movie. Live and Let Go, you can choose to insist on pursuing your own immortality, but the birth, old age, sickness and death of all things are not a real eternity.
Feng Xiaogang said that the acceptance of movies is divided into perceptual acceptance and routine acceptance. Personally, I feel that "The Fountain" is relatively easy to accept rationally, and it tries to avoid Hollywood clichés: for example, whether you choose to hold on or let go, Izzi is formally dead. However, the triumphant smiles of those villains after Hugh Jackman became a "saint" are also full of utilitarian colors, as if reminding the audience at all times: this is the "harmony between man and nature" in the eyes of the director who has long been immersed in the philosophy of "man conquers nature". Emotionally, I think Aronofsky failed for the simple reason that no matter how good the subject matter of the film, it wasn't "good-looking". Hugh Jackman is indeed a very flavorful actor, but he can always bring out this flavor in high-level foils or rival plays, and he can't be like many excellent actors (not to mention classics like Nicholson and Hoffman, The same level as Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Eric Bana) is on his own, so giving him too much drama is like chewing wax. I have never liked Rachel Weisz, I think she is quite ordinary and has no special features. The reason why she won the Oscar was because her opponent was too weak. And a fatal injury, this woman does not call any male star in a romantic scene. . . As for Aronofsky, maybe he also wanted to try a slow-paced shift, but it seemed too mediocre. The 2,000 perfectly stitched cuts in Requiem for a Dream are breath-takingly brilliant; The Fountain doesn't have much of a catchy element to fill those tedious gaps. Blank is blank. This is not a common problem with slow-paced movies. Think about FFCoppola's three "The Godfather" and Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon" to know, maybe this is the difference between a good director and a great director.
Note:
(1) The inconsistency is that the first ending does not seem to have a saint
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