Seriously. I thought I understood with about 15 minutes left, and I still think I get the present and future, but in the past what’s up with him becoming flowers? Or did I really not understand any of it?
This is blatantly ripped from another forum. I give credit to Patrick Sun, though I have no idea who he is though I thought basically the same as him.
This is how I see the film’s story, I hope my interpretation is how it was intended to be perceived after digesting it and deconstructing it (because once I did this, I thought even better of the film, it’s just that the fractured narrative device takes on a life of its own, which makes it a little daunting for some to sit through the first time):
You can say that Izzie’s book, set in the 1500’s, was a rumination of present-day Tommy’s obsession with finding a cure for her terminally tumorous condition. That story itself (in the book) is about Tomas looking to conquer death for Isabella, but in that story, Izzie’s tale has Tomas (after much trial and tribulations of obstacles, fuled by fervent determination, much like Tommy in the present day) finding what appears to be the Fountain where reportedly life is sustained, forever as it were. What Tomas finds is that the sap from the tree can mend wounds (like doctors can do now), but in the end, it is Tomas who ends up sustaining life for the tree and other forms of life on a grander scale in a cycle of life and death at the fountain through his own death.
Tommy is presented with a final wish by Izzie, to finish the book she started. It is one that Tommy finishes, but only after Izzie passes away, much to Tommy’s tumultuous helplessness in trying and ultimately failing to cure her. What Izzie understood was the cycle of life must embrace death, it’s an understanding that Tommy isn’t willing to accept at this point in his life. Then he goes about to finishing the book because Izzie wanted him to do so.
Tommy starts the final chapter, it deals with a man (I’ll call him Thomas) travelling through the stars, half a millenia from now, with the tree of his life in an orb-like starship. The tree sustains him on the journey to the nebula that promises eternal life (relating back to Izzie and Tommy’s conversation outside their window on a winter day as she looked towards the stars and pointed out the nebula for Tommy and the lore of it), but Tommy’s story does so with visions of past relationship between Tommy and Izzie, Tomas and Isabella, their relationship producing the beat for the dance of life and death connected through the attractive force of love between them.
The substenance offered by the tree is a metaphor of Izzie’s love sustaining Thomas through his journey to ascertain eternal life. As the story cuts between Tommy and Thomas and Tomas, Tommy comes to understand that in the end, he must travel alone. We see Thomas break out from the sphere carrying him and the tree, and he alone, with Izzie’s love (the bits of bark of the tree) sustaining him and propelling him, and Thomas finally reliquishes his pursuit of everlasting life and gives into the cycle of life and death (shown in spectacular fashion on the screen). Tommy finally understands what Izzie was telling him, and he is able to accept her death and move on with his life, with less regret, and more understanding of his place in the universe. Thus ends the book, The Fountain, as written by Izzie and Tommy.
Wow.
I thought the past Izzie and Tommy were just the story, not real people. But I thought future Tommy and Izze were the real Tommy and Izzie. Maybe the strangest movie I’ve ever seen.
Well, that’s different than what I thought it was about. I’ve been thinking about it since I’ve seen it, but I still don’t understand it. I thought the last chapter that Tom (present day) wrote was the battle between Tomas and the Mayan and Tomas finding the tree and finally becoming absorbed by the tree. I thought that Tommy (future Tom) was actually Tom in the 26th century (not made up) that found the secret to everlasting life through the tree. If you remember, after Izzy dies he vows to find a cure for death, saying “Death is just a disease, and it can be cured.” This statement was based on the director’s interview with a real doctor who thought the very same thing (I found that info on WiKi, so take it with a grain of salt). That’s why I believe that the “future Tom” is really Tom 600 years later, living life immortal.
But then again, maybe future Tom isn’t real at all. Future Tom seems to die when Xibalba goes supernova, yet present day Tom looks up at the sky and watches that same sun peter out in the present. Technically, that would have actually happened some hudreds of years in the past, not in the future. As strange as this film was, it still has me thinking about it.
I think the key to the movie is the last paragraph of what Cherub posted in here. Tom, the space man, has journeyed for hundreds of years essentially (you see the tattoos on his arm like the rings of a tree to indicate age) to find Izzy. In the end, he does accept that he will unite with her only after he gives himself up to death, and finishes the story (“finish it, finish it”). So, we get that crazy ending of him flying into the nova.
There is some other stuff that I still don’t completely understand (mostly the bit with Tomas being reabsorbed by the tree) but it definitely gives me something to think about.
Snide answer: The ending is you lost $5-8, and 90 minutes.
Less snide: everything except the modern Tommy is fiction in the book. First Izzie’s, then Tommy’s.
Other answer: awesome handwriting is cool.
Yeah- this was my take, too. I read the above post about the future stuff being the last chapter in the book, but that’s just absurd. He wrote his and Izzy’s story into the book? that wouldn’t make any sense, and plus, I seem to remember the scene when he reached the end of the book, and it was clearly before the mayan story (the tree, sap, etc.) was finished.
I’m also starting to think the life tree that future Tom travels with is the tree he planted at Izzie’s gravesite. I remember somewhere else in the film Izzie talking about how when someone else dies they had a tree planted at their site and they became one with the tree. Maybe when Tom planted the tree of life seed at Izzie’s gravesite, the tree took on some of the characteristics of Izzie (the hair) hence Tom’s very stong attachment to the tree.
Yes, you can interpret it that way, though that means you believe that in the future, we can fly in bubbles.
It’s also believable that Tommy took that story and integrated it into the final chapter of Izzi’s book.
And 500 years ago we thought space flight was like what, exactly? I found the whole bubble concept to be pretty acceptable, actually. ‘Any technology sufficiently advanced…’ and all that rot.
I, too thought that the tree was the one that was planted over Izzy’s grave. Perhaps with a seed-pod from the tree they were taking samples from in Central America. Thus it (and her) sustains him on his long journey.
That was my impression as well. Space bubbles may seem absurd, but criticizing science-fiction for presenting future technology that seems absurd is pretty absurd in of itself.
I am the resurrection and the life. I just saw this and I wish I hadn’t read a review of it beforehand, I’d like to have seen the film as a blank slate.
Personally I like the film the most by believing that almost everything we are shown was true. Tomas finds the tree of life, becomes immortal, moves to New York to live with his now immortal wife Isabella, she dies 600 years later, he builds his bubble spaceship in a misguided attempt to bring her back to life, the film ends after he decides to commit suicide by yoga-floating into a supernova.
The unnecessarily arty Roger Ebert approved interpretation(Mayan stuff was Izzi’s part of the book, space stuff was Tommy’s) doesn’t, technically, qualify as science fiction(Aronofsky described his film as science fiction, though the non-SF interpretation is certainly more depressing, which seems more his style) . This may be supported by the film, perhaps, but I like it less.
I think my literal interpretation makes Tommy’s obsession with using the same “botanical substance” more interesting because he knows it’s the tree of life. It’s a secret he can’t reveal, but he thinks it’s the only chance of saving Izzi and thus attempts to feign breakthroughs of science as his way of convincing his coworkers to incorporate the material he knows has magic powers into scientific research. The literary interpretation just makes Tommy a brilliant scientist who stumbles upon an anti-aging/neural improvement/super healing compound by accident while trying to save his wife.
“Finish it” doesn’t mean “hey can you possibly polish off this manuscript for me?/Please commit suicide at your earliest convenience”, it means “write the last chapter in the story of our lives which you believed would continue forever.” Turns it from depressing(grieving widower decides to kill himself while finishing wife’s book) into poignant and touching(love story that covers 1000 years).
I saw the film as a blank slate, and even though I initially felt that the future Thomas was in fact ‘real’, it makes more sense that the present day Tommy is real, and is finishing the book Izzy started, and moving on with his life.
Of course, the movie’s really up to your personal interpretation. There’s no reason why the future Thomas can’t be a valid interpretation of events.
It’s what good speculative fiction is all about.
Wolverine regrets being a jerk to his dying wife so damn hard he eats bark forever in contrition until he flies into a sun, the end.
I hate to open up a second can of worms and slop it in there, but here goes.
[beret]I felt the same way about this movie that I did about Pan’s Labyrinth. In both cases, you can construct a coherent (well, semi-coherent in the case of the Fountain) interpretation based around taking everything presented in the movie absolutely literally. Fairyland is real, and so are space conquistadors.
But in my opinion, both become much more complex and rewarding if you accept that parts of the movie are representational (is that the right word in this context?) rather than literal. In this case, you’re getting greater insight into the characters because you get to see how they are constructing meaning from the events of the movie, and then compare that with your own construction of meaning. This also gives you a lot more reason to watch the movie again, as this interpretation doesn’t necessarily gel until late in the movie (for me, I think I came to this interpretation of the Fountain right about at the point the credits started rolling) and it recontextualizes everything to that point.[/beret]
There aren’t many movies that I’m not willing to dissect with an overly analytical discussion. This, however, is one of them. :)
-TomPersonally, all I can say is that I really liked this movie. It makes me wish I cared about something or someone that much.
I thought the music was just as astonishing as the visuals.
The last 10 minutes shook the foundation of any theories that I had while watching the movie.
Good film, 2 gunnnn-fingers up.
I think space bubble Thomas being real is as good an interpretation as any. Right before Izzy died they made some kind of anti-aging breakthrough on the chimp but Tommy didn’t care at the time because the tumor was unchanged. So after that I just assumed that he was immortal and flying around with Izzy’s tree. Then after Izzy’s tree died he finally let go and moved on.
At the risk of incurring Tom’s wrath, I’d say I prefer to believe, in order:
- All 3 Hugh Jackman characters are the same person(Tomas finds magic tree of eternal life)
- Only 2005 Hugh Jackman is real(Tomas and bubble dude are portions of the book[the last chapter of the book is the bubble guy])
- 2005 Hugh Jackman is bubble Hugh Jackman(Tomas is fictional[the last chapter of the book is Tomas finding the tree], but Hugh discovered anti-aging compound)
But I absolutely reject and hate Roger Ebert’s smug “I figured out the one true interpretation” review, which motivated resurrecting this thread. I think ‘figuring out’ this movie is seriously missing the point. I normally like Ebert, too.
Either way,
It makes me wish I cared about something or someone that much.
and
I thought the music was just as astonishing as the visuals.
It’s kind of bizarre that Clint Mansell is responsible for 2 of the best scores of the last decade(this and Requiem for a Dream), but every other film he scores A) Kinda sucks and B) Doesn’t have a memorable score. I wonder what it is about Aronofsky?