Film Illiterate, wherein the proprietor records movies seen, and sporadic progress through assorted lists of the "best". Originally started after regretfully renting something forgettable for the third time. I've forgotten what, but never again! A tedious endeavour since 2005. Hello. 🙂
A beautiful, dreamlike meditation on grief, loss and healing from Darren Aronofsky (π, Requiem for a Dream). Its intertwined stories -- a 16th century Spanish conquistador, a present-day medical researcher, a traveller in space in the far future -- are epic in scope, but the film is less ambitious than it first appears: Aronofsky tries to capture the gravitas of eternity so he can lend it to a simple, human tragedy.
Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz are stunning; the visual effects, specially produced through microphotography of bacteria, are fractal chaos balanced against the ordered symmetry of the shots. Clint Mansell's score, performed by the Kronos Quartet and Mogwai, is haunting. It's an experience.
If it treads dangerously close to pop-spirituality -- all you'd need is a unicorn and rainbow to turn those scenes of bubble-meditation into the kind of low-brow air-brushed fantasy "artwork" that sells alongside dream-catchers and books on new-age wicca -- then at least Aranofsky has a shield of metafiction to protect him. It is a puncturing thought, however. The Fountain gets enough points from technical merit to make it worth experiencing. Whether it's more profound than twee is a question you'll have to answer for yourself.