The Fountain

Whether my introspective phase recently has been because of the coming winter season-- the illusion of dying with rebirth to follow in the spring-- or whether it's just something I go through now and again, I can't say. Recently I have done a lot of thinking of what life is all about, whether I have lived before and will live again, what that would mean if it's so, what is real, what should be my priorities, death, birth, and I could go on but you get the idea. Mostly I do this for awhile and then decide that I will go crazy if I continue and turn my thoughts back to what to fix for dinner and should I buy some bulbs for the garden.

From my past experience with 'meaning of life' questions, I usually come around to feeling we have to do the best we can with what we have been given (which doesn't really say much, does it). I sometimes wonder if enough people even think about life purposes. Are most people, including me sometimes, so distracted by the mundane, by entertainment, by our own problems, that we don't think about whether we are fulfilling our own life purpose. Do we lose the big questions in the petty ones?

So when I'm in a questioning mood and have no answers, I look for spiritual films to watch-- things that will add to my confusion... Well, not that but definitely films that will expand my thinking. After all, if I wasn't already questioning life's mysteries, why would I invite that? I tend to collect movies for such times. The Fountain got added to that shelf this week-end.

I didn't go into the video store intending to buy The Fountain, which was directed and written by Darren Aronofsky. I was looking through a section of previous viewed DVDs on sale. Actually I had some reservations about it given most of the reviews I had read were negative claiming it was confusing or pointless. However, where it comes to spiritual films, I don't let reviews make up my mind given what seems to make sense in a spiritual way often is the opposite of what the world sees as making sense.

The Fountain has the advantage of two very interesting stars, Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz. The story is about reincarnation, the meaning of death, and relationships between people that extend through one lifetime to another with perhaps the same lessons to learn in each. It was also confusing. You have to work to keep up with what is going on which is one of the problems with movies that pass through several different stories and try to keep the viewer connecting the dots. One story was current; one in the 16th century and one supposedly in the 26th century. You could take the stories, except the one in this lifetime, as being dreams, allegories or real events.

The movie is not filled with action and it does take concentrating. It is not a love story even though the main characters are involved in a tragic love. Personally, I didn't follow that supposed future life one at all and it would have made more sense to me if it had been the man in the spirit world, his soul, his in-between-lifetimes being, and not some supposed future life. On that level, it all would have made total sense (to me). I didn't see the value of it being future life, but if it was soul, the man's higher self, then it connected those dots.

So taking it as I preferred to interpret it (which since it was a bit confusing was easy to do), the man was a doctor trying to find a cure for cancer in time to save his wife who was dying from a brain tumor. The cure supposedly lay in material from a Central American tree. His wife was writing a book that told their story in the Spain of the 16th Century where the Inquisition was threatening Queen Isabella (her) as she sent off the conquistador, who loved her (him) to find the tree of life from the Bible where God hid it in Central America, in the land of the Mayans.

For someone who follows a lot of spiritual traditions, none of what I just wrote seems is as far fetched as it might sound. Humans always try to make sense of death. There is a seemingly universal desire to find meaning to life... and hence I am back to where I started this blog-- with, as I said, no answers. Other than I believe it's good to think on such things-- sometimes.

I can't say I'd recommend The Fountain or not recommend it. It's not a film for everyone. If you are the sort who likes to ponder the mysteries of life, enjoys beautiful imagery, and is content to watch films where not all solutions are neatly tied up by the ending credits, then I think with a fire in the fireplace and a bowl of popcorn, you might enjoy it as I did.