Anyone gonna see The Fountain?

[Kimbell175113]

I liked the movie, but I don't really feel the need to convince anyone who didn't that they are wrong. It's weird because usually I do have that urge, when I like a movie that is generally derided.

I am 99% sure that SPOILERS <font color="white">bubbleTom is real. His is the present of the story, the rest are flashbacks (the conquistador is his reading of the book within the flashback, except for the last time when it is what he would write for the ending). Anything we see is from his memory, and sometimes, especially near the end, it's his imagination of what should have happened. I don't remember any specific obvious clues to this, but I could just 'feel' it from the editing, scene structure, etc. Seemed like it fit into the standard way that flashbacks/nonlinear stuff is done. Sorry I can't remember anything specific; it's been a while since I saw it.</font>

[Thug Bubbles]

The movie had a sick score and it's criminal that Clint Mansell didn't get any nods. I liked it quite a bit but it wasn't as daring as it could have been. Which is odd since it's a 'jumbled mess' to most people.

[stabn]

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I've seen this movie. It is bad... so, so bad. (And Requiem is one of my favorite films of all time). It's the kind of bad that can only be made by a genius, because it's off-the-deep-end horrible. Not run-of-the-mill-horrible such as Cruel Intentions 2 or You, Me, &amp; Dupree. It's more like "WTF did I just see that" horrible.

Sadly, it's also not the "so terrible it's funny" or "so bad it's good" kind of crappy. I had no fun at this movie. It's an ill-conceived mess, and one that I wish had never seen the light of day.

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Oddly i agree with PJ for once. This film is trash. The plot is retarded, the characters aren't compelling and i wanted to leave after the first 10 minutes. That feeling never left me and if i wasn't seeing it with my gf i would have walked out.

I have never been more bored during a film.

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A year later i still feel this way but do wonder a bit as to why the thread got bumped.

[Kimbell175113]

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I've seen this movie. It is bad... so, so bad. (And Requiem is one of my favorite films of all time). It's the kind of bad that can only be made by a genius, because it's off-the-deep-end horrible. Not run-of-the-mill-horrible such as Cruel Intentions 2 or You, Me, &amp; Dupree. It's more like "WTF did I just see that" horrible.

Sadly, it's also not the "so terrible it's funny" or "so bad it's good" kind of crappy. I had no fun at this movie. It's an ill-conceived mess, and one that I wish had never seen the light of day.

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Oddly i agree with PJ for once. This film is trash. The plot is retarded, the characters aren't compelling and i wanted to leave after the first 10 minutes. That feeling never left me and if i wasn't seeing it with my gf i would have walked out.

I have never been more bored during a film.

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A year later i still feel this way but do wonder a bit as to why the thread got bumped.

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The 'scared of death' thread probably brought it to someone's mind.

[burningyen]

It was the "afraid of death" thread + the coincidence that I saw the movie for the 1st time last night.

[ActionJeff]

I really didn't like this movie, and I'm usually into deep thought provoking type stuff, but this movie just sucked.

[Rushmore]

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i didn't think the life aquatic was great or anything, but even as probably the worst wes anderson movie it was head and shoulders above most of the crap people watch. i liked it.

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I know. I cannot understand all the hate for The Life Aquatic. Given the choice between watching this movie over and over forever or watching a steady stream of movies generally enjoyed by most people, I'm watching this (if only to be able to listen to Sigur Ros).

Anyway, I always stop and watch it (again) when I see it on cable, so it must be OK.

[Xibalba]

Trying to figure out which part of the movie is literal is really not important, pretty much because it's constructed in such a way that the actual meaning is not in the story, but in visual language. It's sort of like a Borges story in the sense that what is really real, imagined, or not is not the point.
You could make the argument that future Tom is real because he pretty much cured death in the present, and that his appereance in the Mayan story is because that's how he finished writing the book in the future, but it is all missing the point.
The story never was about any of the three plotlines, and it actually wasn't about trying to come to grips with the death of a loved one, as most have interpreted it. The film is about getting to grips with one's own mortality, which is why the Mayan story is about a conqueror desperately trying to find immortality and using his duty to the queen as his excuse for being afraid to die. In the present "Tom" is using his wife as his excuse and you realize that when, after her funeral, he grows more stubborn in curing death. In the future, his memories and everything of Izzy is what tries to get him to Xibalba, but it's once again because he can't let go, he doesn't want to die.

If you pay attention, you realize that all of the three stories are completely analogous, even visually ( with the difference that each one of them uses a different geometrical figure as its core). The three of them are about Tom/Tomas walking into the light. In the past you see the light when the Queen mentions something along the lines of how no matter how much darkness there is, every minute the light of dawn becomes much of a threat, creating the metaphor of light as death. And in that story, when Tomas finally gets to the tree is the only time there's light. Otherwise, light is only what he works towards but can't.
In the present, particulary in the memory he is always remembering, light is where Izzy leaves the building, but he fights it and goes again into the darkness. And the light only confronts him when Izzy dies and the doctor pushes him into the window.
In the future, Xibalba is the light.

I understand why a lot of people dislike the movie. Well, no, actually I don't, but I can see how they don't like it. If that makes sense. But from a structural, cinematic and visual point of view, it's masterful.

[burningyen]

Just re-watched the movie and noticed a few things.
<font color="white">
The last page Izzi wrote:</font>

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<font color="white">...separates Tomas from [illegible]. Tomas reaches for a weapon but his swords are gone. All he has is the dead priest's stone dagger. He pulls it out and steps forward to cut out the heathen's life.

But then the pagan mutters something in his tongue and smiles. And Tomas knows, more clearly than he has ever known any other thing, that he cannot beat this beast. The pagan raises his sword above his head. Staring into the flames Tomas sees the demons of hell feasting on his soul, and maggots crawling through his flesh, and as the blade and the flame was falling towards him, shuddering inevitably towards his chest, Tomas's fear paralyzed him. All he could see was death.</font>

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<font color="white">So she mixes verb tenses. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Also, the blade of the stone dagger is channeled down the middle like Izzy's fountain pen.

The last full scene, after the space odyssey, is Tom burying the seed in Izzi's grave and saying "Bye, Izzi." He seems pretty at peace, which makes me lean slightly back towards the idea that the space stuff might actually be in the book and not "real." I like this movie even more.</font>

[burningyen]

Yeah, this time around I noticed that ambiguity as to whether his primary motive is his love for Izzi or his fear of death.