Can someone explain the ending of The Fountain for me?(spoilers)

I’m fine with the literal interpretation, however: how do you square Tomas’ final scene? Just sort of assuming that he only passed out, and there’s an unseen bit where he groggily comes to, and spends awhile weeding himself? (The long roots are the worst to get out of your abdominal cavity; if you just snap off the stem and flower, they keep regrowing.)

Personally, I go with 2005 Hugh being the literal bit. Tomas is almost entirely Izzy’s perspective in the book; Space Bubble Guru Hugh is 2005 Hugh working things out in an inner landscape that looks amazing in HD and the sound system turned up. But I appreciate that the film lends itself to different framings (aside from looking great in HD) rather than using exposition hammers.

I know people who call Requiem’s musical score hideous. People are weird creatures.

I also loved Mansell’s music in Pi. Didn’t even know he scored non-Aronofsky movies.

I loved this movie and really liked the fact that its explanation was quite open ended depending on how you wished to look at things. There are compelling reasons to think either bubble Tommy is just part of the story that 2005 Tommy writes, or that bubble Tommy is 2005 after having gotten immortal. Both are good, but I think the idea that only 2005 Tommy is actually real offered the better ending and messed better with the final shot of him planting the seeds and walking away.

Oh and the music was so very good.

He did find the cure when he cured the monkey. One can’t simply drop that part of the story; however it’s painfully obvious Thomas never actually dies by the end of the film. He accepts her death and plants a tree over her grave – so I’d say the two stories are Izzy’s story and Thomas’ story.

how do you square Tomas’ final scene? Just sort of assuming that he only passed out, and there’s an unseen bit where he groggily comes to, and spends awhile weeding himself?

That was a representative depiction. The whole movie cannot be literal, there’s one scene that has two different outcomes(Izzi asking Tommy to go for a walk).

thamer, painfully obvious? Really? Fantastic that you’ve also figured out the one true meaning of the film.

I get a bad feeling whenever a director says their movie is “open to interpretation”, because to me that means they don’t know what it’s about either, I don’t see how you can construct a meaningful narrative when you don’t know what it is you’re trying to say. To me this suggests that rather than meaning, you have a lot of gorgeous imagery that works well together, but no real substance to it.

I found myself disappointed.

because to me that means they don’t know what it’s about either,

HEY I FOUND WHERE YOUR ARGUMENT STOPS MAKING SENSE. So hopefully now you won’t get bothered by this anymore.

Yeah, because someone not explaining themselves is gonna do that.

Is this the only The Fountain thread? Anyway, it’s the first one that popped up so I figure I’ll ask here.

Anyone have the MP3 for the commentary track that Aronosky released through his website? It’s not longer up there (the link is broken).

Whoa, I had no idea such a thing existed. As much as I’d like to listen to that, Aronofsky is kind of a jerk. I’m afraid he’d ruin the movie for me.

 -Tom

Is that even possible?

A brief search revealed multiple torrents.

Ahh, gotcha. Thanks!

Ok…I’m a bit late responding to this one but it is one of my very favorite movies…seen it many times and it only get better with time. To say the director intended all the things I am about to explain may be a bit far reaching but here goes:
Hugh jack mans character is is a perpetual meditative state in the space scene. He is now the control and owner of the whole ride. He has lost the love of his life in the previous two encounters (if you buy into twin flame theory, he has had the opportunity to develop and grow his soul by trying to conquer the inevitable “death” that haunts every living creature, he tries in all his flame encounters to heal and show his undying love).
Even in his developed meditative state he is unable to let go of this love. It is a true love story to the end.
All three really existed, the Spanish conquest was most likely a rememberance of a previous life, the current time is another flame encounter, and the final space scene is yet another opportunity for Hugh to show his love by using solely his mind to heal all of it.
This is very metaphysical and very esoteric…but,eh, it’s a movie. Conceptually in incorporates much of those belief systems and intertwined them magnificently!
Time is cyclical not perpetual. Twin flame love. Mind over matter and meditation. Myth and imagery. All intertwined. Beautiful!

I thought the last shot where a solid image gradually melts away was of the heat death of the universe. Pretty shot and music nonetheless.

Hi, I have an important (at least for me) question about the movie “The Fountain”. I would really appreciate opinions about it.

I understand that in the end, the protagonist accepts his fate. That is, the fact that dying is unavoidable and even necessary. It’s a natural and inherent part of the cycle of life. But do you think that the reincorporation into the circle of life implies some kind of reencounter with Izzie? Do you think Aronofksy wants to transmit the message that death, even though it ends “material” life, leads to some other form of “attenuated” form of life in which our inner-most essence lives on in eternity?

REPORTED

Just saw this one too :) (yeah, i know, sorry) And i’d add to some of the insights given so far about the film another aspect that i have not seen discussed.

We all come from the Stars, we are all made from the stars and to the stars ‘we’ all will ultimately return. I found that a strong part of the wide ranging ‘mythology’ that this film interweaves into it’s story. There is ‘eternal life’ in that cycle and possibly/probably (according to the narrative of the film) a key to that is true love for another, that rare real connection those of us lucky enough to experience can understand.

I thought this a very thoughtful and visually stunning film, one you probably should watch a few times, as there is no one unified ‘answer’ to the film, more a series of questions about our mortality or lack of it if we live our lives as they are supposed to be lived.

I didn’t find it pretentious, or even touching on that (although it is a criticism i see leveled at the film in the ‘reviews’) and actually is trying to not be pretentious (imho). I think the issue there is this is not typical film fodder made for the masses, and is a complex layered look at the loss of a real loved one, that power of grief and helplessness until one excepts the ‘luck’ and beauty to have true love, however fleeting. And i think that is probably an uncomfortable emotion to parse for those that have not found it in their own lives, thus the hostility etc.

8/10 (i know this goes against so many things, but it is a bit of fun; the out-of-ten thing)

So my music player shuffled the Fountain soundtrack yesterday and I inspired me to watch the movie again. Having not seen it in 10 years, I’d forgotten what a masterpiece it is. The climactic 10 minutes literally brings a tear to my eye.

I’d discussed it a bit with some friends afterward, most of whom only vaguely remembered it.Those that did had the usual complaints about it not making any sense, or a hard to follow “plot”, et cetera.

What is it about film in particular that people expect to always service a clear narrative? Other forms of art don’t have this requirement. Lyrics don’t have to make sense for people to enjoy them. People can remember famous album covers, say, without needing to know why. So why can a movie not be enjoyed, by most, merely for the visual and auditory spectacle?

I’m among those who believe that all parts of the story really happen, including the ones that are contradictory.

To use a very geeky analogy, Conquistador Tomas & Queen Isabella are the Prince Endymion & Queen Serenity to Tommy & Izzy’s Tuxedo Mask & Sailor Moon. That is, they are reincarnated in the present. This is made possible by future Tom’s actions.

I wouldn’t be surprised to find out Aronofsky has read Frank J. Tipler’s “The Physics of Immortality,” because it heavily informs my interpretation of what Tom is doing in the end. Admittedly, the movie never comes out and says this is what it is, but for me it makes the movie make perfect sense. To summarize it as quickly as I can, Tipler predicts a ‘big crunch,’ the big bang in reverse, where all points in spacetime come together in a quantum singularity he calls the omega point, and that it would possess the computing power/intelligence (same thing) of all the history of the universe. Basically it’s a fanciful physicist’s justification for how he thinks the universe could arrive at an omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent god. In the movie we’re using Xibalba, the dying star, as a stand-in for the omega point, the dying universe.

Izzy recounts the creation myth that First Father sacrificed himself to make the world. “That’s the tree of life bursting out of his stomach. […] What do you think of that idea? Death as an act of creation.” See, there’s one last ingredient to this omega point, it needs the spark of life. In the scene where Tom is floating to go become one with all the universe as it condenses down to a single point, the fact that Darren Aronofsky in his commentary track was a little too embarrassed to spell out the imagery made me smack my head and ask why I didn’t see it before: he’s a sperm floating towards the egg. He is literally First Father and is recognized as such explicitly by the tree’s guardian as he now moves freely around time, being one with all points of it. Furthermore, he can even live out life differently, that’s how we get two different ‘first snow’ scenes, one where he didn’t follow her and one where he does, and to my mind they both happened.