The Darjeeling Limited

The central focus and also the enduring obsession of nearly everything written about Wes Anderson and his films may be summarized in a four word phrase most commonly associated with E.B. White: the elements of style. While White’s slender volume was an impressive distillation of grammatical and compositional lucidity, personal profiles of Wes and critical reviews of his work are usually distillations themselves: accurate, if predictable, summaries of the Wes Anderson aesthetic, highly attentive to slow motion sequences, meticulous set design, French New Wave homage, and repeated use of British Invasion rock, to mention only a few of his most commented on techniques. Perhaps no director, at least no American director since Woody Allen, has been so identified with a particular style (though I would add that Woody’s stylistic versatility is often overlooked: who can honestly say that Stardust Memories or Match Point are cut from the same cloth as Annie Hall?) That style has, for an admittedly nominal audience, become as ubiquitous as the films themselves. For some, the quirky and peculiar seeds that began to blossom with Rushmore, and reached full-flowering in The Royal Tenenbaums, started to wilt once they appeared to be a permanent fixture rather than a temporary, though charming, calling card. So, with the messy, somewhat emotionally stilted, cartoonish, and childishly ornate Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou left to drift in the backwater, what does The Darjeeling Limited offer to Wes Anderson fans: a turn towards a different direction, or more of the same? The answer turns out to be: a bit of both.

Though sometimes described as a tale of three brothers on a spiritual quest in India, the film does not have the meditative quality that India might induce in a more mystically minded director (a la Terrence Malick). Even though the three brothers, Francis, Peter, and Jack, (Owen Wilson, Adrian Brody, and Jason Schwartzman respectively) are surrounded by holy shrines and temples, they quickly begin to bicker, initiating an air of frivolity and suspicion that lasts for most of the film. This is not to its detriment though: indeed, it results in most of the laughs. The humor is sharp and about as dry as an Indian summer, and carries, in typical Wes Anderson fashion, an undercurrent of melancholy and absurdity. In one early scene, Francis, Peter, and Jack sit in the dining car, traveling through an ancient land, seeking (at least in Francis’ eyes) a spiritual experience, but resort to trying each others controlled substances, as if they were filling up at a pharmaceutical buffet. The effect is comic, ironic, and more than a little sad: they begin to appear simultaneously as patently spoiled upper-crust basket cases and lovable fools.

Essentially, the The Darjeeling Limited plays out with a trio of alienated, fractured, but minimally hopeful and likeable western tourists trekking across a tropical landscape seeking some sort of reconciliation, however transitory it may be. The script has more life to it than did The Life Aquatic (an odd flop since Noah Baumbach was Wes’ co-writer) and each of the brothers, especially Francis and Peter, exhibit enough pathos to keep everything on track in the film’s awkward, and yes, predictable moments. Describing those moments in detail is unnecessary: anyone remotely familiar with his past work will spot them immediately. The difference here is that they punctuate, rather than define, the film.

The effect that the location has on the film may be debatable. For me, India is a canvass that very nearly paints itself, and here Anderson is armed with a dizzying array of spectacle, color, and sound with which to make his signature flourishes. There is usually something exotic or exaggerated about a Wes Anderson set, but the crucial difference here is that India is a naturally exotic environment, in contrast to the artificial though lavishly imagined interiors of the Tenenbaum house or Zissou’s ship. It is true that the train on which the brothers ride is impeccably and atypically stylish. Yet even if it is fantastic, it is not much more so than many of the natural locations. The inherent pageantry of India, though possibly romanticized through the western tourist’s eyes, tempers Anderson’s sometimes almost overwhelming stylishness. Perhaps for the first time since Rushmore, his characters appear to populate an actual environment.

Death (or is it life?) as a journey is an obvious though restrained theme throughout, and if this is a comedy it still harbors plenty of wounds. In a scene near the end of the film, Francis removes his bandages as he stares into a bathroom mirror. In that moment any semblance of a joke is also stripped away, and in a sense every kind of artifice is also removed, as the unveiled face of Owen Wilson manages to appear stark and somehow very real. It is a dangerous and beautiful moment, and yet it eschews tragedy and finds a way to live with its wounds. Like much of Hotel Chevalier, the short which precedes the film, this moment makes one ask: what would happen if Wes Anderson made an entire film in this manner? Watching The Darjeeling Limited one is tempted to draw parallels between Wes Anderson and his three protagonists. Both venture into new territory, unable to entirely leave the past behind, but manage, if only momentarily, to let go of some of the baggage.

Update! There Will Be Blood

Although its' release date is two months away, PT Anderson's latest film is generating a lot of critical attention complete with all of its' ensuing hyperbole. Are reactions to the film that reference John Huston, Stanley Kubrick, Citizen Kane and its legendary performance by the venerable Orson Welles justified? Is this film, as one early reviewer described it, really the cinematic eqivalent of heroin? There's no way to know, but my hunch is we're in for a real treat. Oh, and did I mention that Mr. Johnny Greenwood, Radiohead guitarist, ondes martenot master, and BBC Composer in Residence, has written the score? Be still my heart.

Hot Fuzz

Despite my recent post on Bergman’s passing, my attitude towards the current state of film is not completely hopeless, though the decline in philosophically rigorous filmmaking is a bit troubling. And though I make no apologies for appreciating films that are artful and thought provoking, I am not immune to less serious fare as long as it is good. For example, who could not love Wedding Crashers, and the outrageous spectacle of hilarity that was Will Ferrell at the film’s end? Lately such well-crafted films have been absent but a recent viewing of Hot Fuzz engendered an unexpected amount of enthusiasm for the life it injects into the parody genre and served as an introduction to the sizeable talents of director/writer Edgar Wright and writer/actor Simon Pegg.

These are the creators of the fantastically witty zombie spoof Shaun of the Dead, who now turn their eye on the often preposterous though always taut genre of the buddy cop film. The quiet village of Sandford serves as the backdrop where Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg), an extremely dedicated and professional police officer fresh from London, uncovers a conspiracy of ridiculous proportions, and attempts to persuade the local police force that the grisly accidents that keep occurring are actually murders. He is teamed with the portly officer Frank Butterman (Nick Frost), a naïve but loyal sort who fantasizes about acting out scenes from Bad Boys and other police thrillers.

Hot Fuzz mercilessly lampoons all of the outrageous elements of the buddy-cop genre but with a lot of heart and enthusiasm. This isn’t an ironic exercise guided by detachment and condescension but an all-out, tongue-in-cheek, barrage of satire that has plenty of sincerity lurking about. In fact, the genius behind this film (and for that matter Shaun of the Dead) is that the material could be played as easily for drama as it could for laughs, and sometimes the distinction between the two is razor thin. This uncommon layering of comedy and drama makes the film a double-threat and a double-treat for anyone who misses well-crafted entertainment.

So, if it wasn’t enough that the Brits gave us Monty Python, Are You Being Served?, Terry Gilliam comedic fantasies, and The Office, we find ourselves treated to another gifted comedy-team from across the pond. Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost have that uncanny chemistry and talent that knows how to craft a laugh. Heck, they even created a hilarious (though all-too brief) role for Office/Extras star Stephen Merchant as the concerned owner of a missing swan. It’s small touches like that which should remind us that subtlety and nuance are not merely the tools of the art-house, and that when properly applied, they can make a genre parody not only entertaining, but also remarkably satisfying.

A Belated Farewell

What words can one add to the mountain of praise that has been bestowed upon Ingmar Bergman shortly after his death? What is one more stranger’s elegy? Several of these pieces have extolled the uncompromising seriousness and artfulness of the great director’s work but have also mentioned how his status has been diminished as his work has fallen out of favor. This I can only regard with complete bewilderment. How, if one is a true lover of the medium, could one possibly disregard a talent so prodigious and an artist of such exactitude and depth as that of Ingmar Bergman? Dismissing his significance by applying to him the title “the prime purveyor of Nordic gloom” seems almost juvenile. Is Dostoyevsky a less significant novelist because his work is of such a “serious” nature? At the risk of sounding too judgmental is it possible that perhaps Bergman’s falling out of favor with the younger generation is in direct correlation to the ascension of celebrated directors of a different sort: purveyors of glibness, irony, and sensationalism of every stripe? The passing of Bergman and (on the same day) Antonioni doesn’t to my mind mark the passing of a cinematic era, for that happened some time ago when both men’s work ceased to have the mass relevance they once possessed. But if you look around at the meager citizenry that subscribes to cinema as art you can’t help but feel that their passing does (no pun intended) put another couple of nails in the proverbial coffin.

Inland Empire

While perusing the movie listings of the local paper, often disheartened by the innocuous and inconsequential fare that they advertise, it is helpful to remember that there are those directors whose most recent feature films are a genuine event, a significant and all too infrequent glimpse into the tantalizing and profound power and beauty of the medium. David Lynch is most certainly a member of this group even though his work has never attracted the mainstream popularity of, say, Stanley Kubrick or Martin Scorsese. Given the idiosyncratic and experimental nature of his output it would be surprising indeed if Lynch transcended his status as a cult figure, yet even if his audience is smaller, his vision less entrenched in the collective cinematic psyche, it makes the arrival of a new film from him no less momentous than those of more celebrated auteurs. Six years have passed since Mulholland Drive seduced and bewildered us, leaving in its wake near unanimous critical praise and an impressive distillation of all things Lynch. Now we have Inland Empire, a dark, mind-bending collage of movie actors, directors, 19th century Poland, prostitutes galore, and a throwback sitcom of giant rabbits complete with laugh-track. While not a radical departure from previous films (there are some of the usual Lynch trademarks such as red curtains, women in distress, ominous and atmospheric sound, ect.) Inland Empire, with its rather dark and sometimes grainy digital veneer is a new and almost alien creation. Even those well-versed in the visual lexicon of the “Jimmy Stewart from Mars” may well concede that, once viewed, Lynch’s latest work will most surely deserve that often misused phrase “it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen.”

The tagline on the movie poster reads “A woman in trouble.” That deceptively simple sentence actually turns out to be the best synopsis one can provide when attempting to describe the film. Laura Dern, in two or possibly three roles, plays an actress whose latest film turns out to be cursed, and finds her inner mental states beginning to deteriorate until it is difficult if not downright impossible to separate her identity from her onscreen self as well as that of her alternate reality self. I think. There is no linear progression though the film is not plot-less, as some critics seem to think. According to Lynch the creative process involved the filming of seemingly disconnected ideas that revealed a hidden unity after their completion, resulting in (his own words) “a story.” The difficulty of interpretation is that we often rely on narrative methods more suited for a stage play. Lynch came to film through painting, and Inland Empire is perhaps his best realization of the concept of “a moving painting”, a concept which guided him towards film in the first place. So although a story of some sort does exist within its frame perhaps it is useful to understand this film at least in part as an experience and interpretation of a series of reoccurring symbols and metaphors that visually tell a story. It is not wholly visual nor wholly dialogue: the narrative is not dispensable but neither is it primary. For David Lynch atmosphere is everything, and Inland Empire is its own world, a dark and brooding realm where subconscious struggles are visually signified in an almost hallucinatory way.

Ostensibly, the film appears concerned with the female psyche and its continual degradation and abuse at the hands of men who fetishize it for their own satisfaction and oppress it in order to reinforce their own dominance. The inner state in which Laura Dern wanders is dark but not exactly a wasteland. In it the recovery of identity becomes the key that will ultimately unlock the door to liberation. At times Inland Empire plays out like a surrealist exploitation flick with a gun wielding Laura Dern attempting to set things right, while at other times turning into a sophisticated horror film, where an almost palpable sense of psychological dread and grotesqueness permeates every square inch of available screen space. The nimble balancing act of the oddly beautiful with the darkness of the mind’s harsh lairs, the slow stirring of anticipation, the inimitable critique of Hollywood fantasy are all noteworthy achievements, but most impressive is Lynch’s ability to weave these dream-like deconstructive bits into an enigmatic but alluring whole. This is ambitious work but it will probably meet with a mixed reception due to its darker, more experimental elements. Where Mulholland Drive possessed a certain flair that one critic described as being akin to “the pop of a whore’s lip gloss”, Inland Empire is a darker, grittier affair where in extreme close ups faces are almost stretched in the manner of a fun-house mirror and the surrealism never ceases. Perhaps it is destined for a fate similar to that of Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, another lengthy, technically significant excursion whose other merits are not immediately evident. Walking out of the theater my mind was reeling: time had been in some sense altered and my senses had not been assaulted but probed. This was a new experience: the light of cinema cast on a mysterious and inner land where the rays cannot penetrate but only dimly and beautifully reflect the strange manifestations that inhabit this realm.

Pan's Labyrinth

What a joy it is to find a film that captures the true nature of a fairy tale. All too often films with a fantastical dimension resort to cuteness and sentimentality in order to become more palatable to children or extreme darkness and gore to court the older viewer. Yet director Guillermo del Toro manages to strike that delicate balance of innocence and evil and by doing so acknowledges a duality that exists in all good fairy tales: beauty and cruelty. Pan’s Labyrinth has both of these qualities; it is hauntingly beautiful and yet savagely cruel. The story centers on Ofelia, a young girl who accompanies her pregnant mother to the country to stay with her new stepfather, Captain Vidal, a fascist who is fighting the rebels in post-civil war Spain. The Captain is the father of the unborn child but upon their arrival Ofelia finds she dislikes him and later insists “he is not my father.”

Immediately after arriving in a countryside brutally ravaged by the last throws of the civil war, Ofelia, a lover of books and fairy tales, begins to find signs of enchantment in the form of a flying insect that she recognizes as a fairy. Sure enough, the creature is able to morph its winged, slender, stick-like shape into a flying sprite that eventually leads her through a stone maze, or labyrinth, and into the underworld where she meets a faun (presumably a version of Pan though del Toro says that Pan and the faun are not one and the same) who informs her that she is the princess of this realm. Long ago she left it for the world of light and forgot her father and his kingdom, but her spirit has returned in the form of Ofelia. She is given three tasks to perform to prove herself as the princess, and meets a pair of fantastical monsters along the way. The first is a giant toad that lives underground beneath a tree, and the second is the Pale man, a towering, white, nearly androgynous creature whose eyes are in his hands rather than on his face. It must be said that the special effects and visual style of the film are astonishing, not because they create something we have never conceived, but because the fantastic creations onscreen are so organic. Every thing in Pan’s Labyrinth is so visceral and tangible that it seems to have sprouted from the earth.

This film may be compared to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Spirited Away, and Alice in Wonderland. It may have many striking similarities with C.S. Lewis’ creation, and the young female protagonist alone in a strange and enchanted world is a trait common to them all. Another is originality. Though Pan’s Labyrinth is said to have borrowed from classical mythology, fairy tales, the classic Spanish film Spirit of the Beehive, and Borges, it takes its inspiration from these rich sources and creates its own distinctive world and populates it with creatures of a most relatable sort. Some are noble and virtuous, others despicable and horrific, but none are mere archetypes and this is its brilliance. It may be impossible to sympathize with Captain Vidal, but his unwavering discipline and commitment to his military cause reveals a man of intense though ultimately inhuman devotion. A quick study of history or even perusing One Hundred Years of Solitude will give you similar characters. Undoubtedly, del Toro’s film is ripe with political symbolism though my ignorance of this era and its conflict leaves me with only the basest of interpretations. Still, some of them are very hard not to see or at least dimly perceive, and it is the issue of perception that reverberates most loudly throughout Pan’s Labyrinth. Which is the real world and which the imaginative? Or are they one and the same? Which is more real, the Pale man or Captain Vidal? Which is more terrifying? The wonderful ambiguity that results from attempting to distinguish reality from fantasy is wonderfully articulated by New York Times critic A.O. Scott when he says “Pan’s Labyrinth is a political fable in the guise of a fairy tale. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Does the moral structure of the children’s story – with its clearly marked poles of good and evil, its narrative of dispossession and vindication – illuminate the nature of authoritarian rule? Or does the movie reveal fascism as a terrible fairy tale brought to life?” Perhaps the film leaves us somewhere in-between: remembering a beautiful, enchanting dream, but seeming to exist, in the words of A.O. Scott, “in the hard blue twilight of a world beyond the reach of fantasy.”

Before Sunrise, Before Sunset

What is love? Do we see it when it is right before our eyes? What is happiness? What about meaning and purpose for our lives? Can they be found? An assortment of these and other questions are what constitute the heart of Richard Linklater’s pair of films Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. The pseudo-intellectual and philosophical ruminations of early adulthood are given a graceful screen treatment that manages to capture these innate longings and speculations with patience and affection. The principal characters are Jesse (Ethan Hawke), an American student on vacation, and Celine (Julie Delpy), a French student on her way back to La Sorbonne. Their chance encounter is introduced in Before Sunrise when they meet on a train and spend a day and night walking through Vienna. Before Sunset is another look at them ten years later in Paris. Each film is essentially an extended conversation conducted against an iconic European backdrop that revels not only in the uncanny connection forged by two lovers but also in the art of conversing itself. It is as if each film is an ode to thoughtful yet pedestrian dialogue.

An American film with European preoccupations is rare (perhaps now we may even say that a European film with European preoccupations is rare!) but the wonderfully meandering and open-ended nature of each of these films recalls the aesthetic of such classic art-house fare as L’Avventura or La Dolce Vita. As there is practically no plot to speak of it may be said that nothing happens, and this is true so far as it is extended towards the traditional plot that introduces conflict and ends in resolution. No one is murdered, or betrayed, there is no bank heist or courtroom soliloquy. The significant action is internal: the common ground staked out by two young people, in love with the world and each other, who are all too aware of the tenuous nature of their desire.

Each film’s visual beauty is enhanced not only by the sumptuous locales, but also by the careful framing of faces and the lengthy tracking shots that heighten the experience of shared time. Richard Linklater and Kim Krizan wrote the first screenplay: they were aided in their efforts for the sequel by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, making the story’s second half a decidedly collaborative affair. Particularly memorable are the contributions by Julie Delpy, whose beautiful performance of an original song is followed by an endearing impression of Nina Simone that helps bring Before Sunset to a graceful close.

Volver

The most common meanings of the Spanish word “volver” are “to turn” and “to revert” and Pedro Almodovar’s film of the same name does plenty of both. Though it twists through the surface of propriety, turning up sordid family histories and broken relationships, there is at the heart of this tale a genuinely realized hope for reconciliation. The blessings and misfortunes of Raimunda (Penelope Cruz) and those near her constitute the film’s emotional and moral center. Despite living in near poverty and working menial jobs Raimunda still harbors a dream that if fully realized could liberate both her and her family. My ignorance of Spain makes it difficult to decide whether or not a woman such as Penelope Cruz, imbued with fiery wit and exotic beauty, would realistically occupy the lower rungs of Spanish society, but her performance is nothing if not vintage art house gold. The dearth of films that allow for performances where subtle looks and gestures carry great emotional weight or where a character’s personality requires a nimble gait to effectively capture pathos and humor is such that Cruz’s nuanced and justly praised performance arouses in the cinephile a passionate desire to proclaim that she has joined the ranks of Giulietta Masina and Catherine Deneuve. The wonderful thing is that this may not be hyperbole. Yet the glory is not solely Cruz’s, though her name and face help sell the film. This is an ensemble cast of considerable talent, and every woman that enters Almodovar’s prism is fleshed out and reflected as a mysterious and complex creature with a continually growing awareness of her own self.

Volver is tender, capricious, and funny, yet it contains dark undercurrents of violence, jealousy, infidelity, and deception. Perhaps more than any film I can remember, excluding some of the works of Ingmar Bergman, it is thoroughly a woman’s film. The few male characters that manage screen time are largely ephemeral: we do not know them except in the most superficial of ways. Yet this did not strike me as a tract of feminist rage or an exercise in male condemnation but rather a sustained view of the difficulties and joys that exist in female relationships of all stripes. All appear confronted with a past that threatens to devour both body and soul, and all seek a future where they may be free of such terrors. The way to reach it seems to be through true connection with family and friends, through compassion, and interestingly, through confession. Despite his deep concerns and themes, Almodovar appears to revel in the fun and titillation of the intentionally provocative nature of the trashy tabloid culture. This is evident in his consistent thematic preoccupation with social taboos with an eye always cast towards the erotic. So we are treated to the shock of the revealed secret, mortality depicted as both bittersweet and comically macabre, and human dignity thrust cruelly against the lurid backdrop of the daytime television talk show.

Curiously enough, it is usually in the midst of these scandalous moments that the truth is revealed. It is only in these moments that the wounds are treated, the scars accepted, and the ghostly apparitions find embodiment. Despite the fact that many of the plot elements in Almodovar’s films could be lifted straight from bad soap operas, there is something truly remarkable in his ability to find compassion for his characters and arouse that compassion in the viewer. For some reason his filmmaking style reminds me of Fellini. Perhaps it is a carnival spirit, the careful employment of bright and vivid color, or maybe a sensibility native to the Mediterranean, but the similarity, though slight, still seems to exist. Maybe it is reinforced by the graceful closure each is capable of bringing to their work, most notably an acute sense of melancholy lurking beneath a veneer of frivolity. At some point in Volver you become aware that the figures at the center of this spectacle are human, and that all are suffering, all are in a state of purgatory, each seeking liberation, atonement, and possibly (though one can’t be too sure) a measure of grace.

P.T. Anderson Article of Interest

While we pine for There Will Be Blood check out this article on PT Anderson over at Senses of Cinema. Its examines (among other things) his use of lens flares and the suggestive color schemes in Punch Drunk Love.

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/05/35/pt_anderson.html

Stranger Than Fiction

Talladega Nights may boast more box office receipts and a half-nude lap around the speedway, but it is Stranger Than Fiction, that other Will Ferrell film of 2006, that truly beguiles us with its charm. Resting upon a fantastical premise yet endowed with enough humor and pathos to ground it in reality it is one of those odd, quirky, slightly left-field slices of cinema that still manages to court a modest audience. It tells the story of Harold Crick (Will Ferrell), an I.R.S. employee whose solitary existence is suddenly interrupted by a woman’s voice who begins to narrate the events of his life as they unfold, and who mentions rather off-handedly the news of his impending death. After some reflection Harold decides that this voice, possessing a crisp, British accent, and a better vocabulary than his own, must belong to a writer, and so enlists the help of an English professor, Dr. Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman), to act as a literary detective in his pursuit of the writer’s identity. With this proverbial cloud hanging over his head, Harold manages to fall for Ana (Maggie Gyllenhaal), the owner of a bakery he is auditing, and soon his feelings about life become more complicated, and then so do ours about Harold. Meanwhile, the writer, Kay Eiffel (Emma Thompson), is unaware that the protagonist of her new novel is all too real and that her artistic decisions have actual consequences for a live human being. Her publisher has sent her an assistant, Penny Escher (Queen Latifah), to help oversee the book’s completion, but Kay’s inability to find a suitable death for Harold Crick, one with profound ironic and metaphoric properties, leaves her unable to finish it and plunges her into an artistic and psychological crisis, thus granting the real Harold his deepest wish: more time.

Given its literary preoccupations, this is at its heart a narrative-driven picture, and yet, there is something strangely arresting about its visuals. They compliment nicely the film’s sometimes whimsical, sometimes melancholy turns of plot. The genuine human longings reflected upon never feel exaggerated and are actually tempered somewhat by Marc Forster’s direction, which is lean and spare. Its’ spartan quality is amplified by many of the film’s locations. The careful employment of ultra-modern architecture, with its landscape of clean, polished surfaces, seems to mirror the barren inner life of its central protagonists: author and subject. It is largely in Ana’s bakery and home that we find external structure and interior décor imbued with real human warmth. There may be an air of predictability looming at certain times, but it never over-shadows the film’s surprisingly endearing cast of characters. True, there is a certain deliberate irony in the fact that the film saddles itself with the same dilemma as faces the novelist: the fate of Harold Crick. Everything unfolds so that some kind of resolution must take place, but deep down, it is not overly concerned with creating a heightened sense of anticipation for the inevitable climax, but in seeing ordinary moments of happiness and melancholy as small epiphanies.

Whether you detect in the film’s treatment of tragedy and comedy a faint whiff of sentimentality or honest, emotional catharsis, this much seems beyond dispute: it has an intellectual temerity and playfulness that are rare qualities of such accessible fare. Highly suggestive, it raises all sorts of interesting questions, leading the viewer to almost unconsciously create a range of dichotomies along the lines of art and life, tragedy and comedy, solitude and communion; the list could go on. It also wrestles good-naturedly with an issue of considerable heft, artistic excellence, and then quickly and wittily beckons us to see the inherent peculiarity of our own lives. In fact, its’ very title functions as a wake up call leading us towards that awareness. You may amble into the theater expecting a Will Ferrell comedy vehicle, but what you are treated to is an uncommon animal: aesthetics striving with the question of human life well-lived. Stranger Than Fiction is that desirable yet elusive figure in short supply at the multiplex these days: the pleasant surprise.

The Fountain

If anyone is lured towards The Fountain expecting a traditional blending of genres, a sci-fi romance hybrid for the CGI age, then the studio’s marketing team should sleep soundly at night knowing they have done their work well. For although science and romance have their respectful roles on the film’s periphery the main object of concern in this, director Darren Aronofsky’s third feature length film, is that most inevitable and mysterious of human limitations, physical death, and the persistent hope of immortality that accompanies it regardless of race, culture, or religious creed. Some higher power must have decided that ruminations on human mortality would be a tough sell especially when they dabble in the fantastic and emerge, as The Fountain does, as an impressive visual spectacle. The film’s substantive visual flair and indelible imagery will haunt you long after the credits roll, but here Aronofsky eschews the brisk, though extremely effective editing techniques of Requiem for a Dream, employing a more singular and philosophical tone that lifts this film into a whole other cinematic realm: it is closer in spirit to the work of Terrence Malick, Andrei Tarkovsky, or Krzysztof Kieslowski than anything a member of his directorial generation has so far produced.

At times astounding, occasionally frustrating, the film unfolds with a grace and mystery analogous to the organic forms that serve as its primary metaphors, branching out into different time periods and religious traditions in a wholly universal reflection on the quest for eternal life. To detail the plot is a delicate undertaking; the danger is not in revealing too much but rather misrepresenting the film as ambitious but hopelessly convoluted. However, a rudimentary distillation may be attempted. Tom (Hugh Jackman) is a modern day American neurosurgeon attempting to find a cure for his wife Izzi’s (Rachel Weisz) brain tumor. Izzi, though terminally ill, is writing a book called The Fountain which concerns a conquistador (Jackman again) who at the request of Queen Isabel (Weisz) has left Inquisition ravaged Spain to search the Mayan empire for a mythic tree of life, seeking immortality for himself and his queen, and salvation for his country. The book then transitions to the 26^th century where an astronaut (Jackman yet again) possessing the freshly shaved head and unadorned wardrobe of a Zen Buddhist novice ascends space in an enormous bubble, accompanied only by a tree of primordial dimensions. His destination, a nebula wrapped around a dying star believed by the Mayans to house the souls of the dead, appears to offer the hope of immortality and results in some of the film’s most unforgettable visuals.

Hugh Jackman ably infuses intensity and metaphysical resolve into each of his three roles while Rachel Weisz, as both Spanish monarch and Izzi, captures a real sense of vulnerability in addition to radiating a truly ethereal beauty. Unfortunately, Ellen Burstyn, so stunning in Requiem for a Dream, here inhabits a much more marginal figure as Tommy’s supervisor. Hers is a character of seriousness and genuine empathy yet her limited role does not allow for the full expression of her considerable talent. The film’s fluctuation in time and locales, from Central American jungles to transparent spacecraft, is in contrast to the singleness of theme that permeates this thousand year span. None of this is too revealing however, because The Fountain doesn’t offer us conflict in one age that is resolved in another. Though all three time periods appear to be inextricably linked there is an elliptical and decidedly non-linear structure to the film. Indeed, one of the film’s central visual metaphors, the ring, reinforces not only cyclical rhythms of life, death, and rebirth, but is also useful when applied to an understanding of the film’s narrative flow. In each age there are the same problems, the same temptations, and the same truth: a constantly reoccurring epiphany for those with the eyes to see.

Perhaps one of the most notable features of The Fountain is its utterly earnest and sincere treatment of all things spiritual. “What do you think about….death as an act of creation?” Izzi asks while reflecting on the Mayan creation myth, a loaded question that could easily stem from a Christian or Buddhist epistemology. There is an element of Buddhist thought underlying much of the film though its introduction seems somewhat arbitrary, at least in the film’s historical context. Still, it manages to coexist with Mayan religious ritual and Catholicism in such a way that their commonality is subtly, though distinctly highlighted. Such ecumenical treatment is remarkable in its best moments for cultivating a rare cinematic humanism that contains real spiritual dimensions. The film may contain the occasional stumble where, for example, the assumption of the lotus position in interstellar flight may make for awkward visual choreography and induce guffaws in even the most seriously inclined of viewers. Still, such missteps are rare. The real difficulty of The Fountain is deciding which understanding of immortality the film attempts to embody as true. The conviction that death is a disease to be cured is clearly repudiated as anti-human, and graceful, calm acceptance of death is depicted as virtuous. However, the question lingers: does our rebirth constitute any semblance of individuality or is it a more impersonal process, forsaking the limitations of the individual in order to be a part of all things? Since theologians and philosophers over millennia have failed to fully address these concerns it would be unfair to expect a film to provide definitive answers, and it is high praise to say that one attempts to raise itself above the level of momentary diversion and aspires to be that rarity among contemporary films: an instrument of sustained philosophical reflection. “I’m going to die” one of the characters says and it is this realization that is the heart of The Fountain. It is more important to recognize this fact than it is to try and penetrate the mystery itself. Functioning simultaneously as spectacle and visual meditation, Aronofsky’s beautiful handiwork challenges, confounds, and perplexes, but even in its imperfect striving manages to reach towards the heart of something so profound that experiencing it onscreen seems to be itself a form of prayer.