The Fountain

A wife dying of cancer. A husband trying desperately to find the cure for it. The wife finds her peace with death, the husband can't find it with life. "Death is a disease, like any other, it has a cure and I will find it", he says. An interesting dilemma, the wife on her deathbed, should he spend his time with his wife because she needs him and this may be all the time he has with her or should he find the cure and save her life yet risk missing it all?

The fountain is another great movie by Darren Aronofsky. Previous achievements include Pi and Requiem for a dream. It seems that obsession is always a theme in his movies. Each film of his explores a different subject, Pi was about finding order in chaos, Requiem was about drug addiction and it's cost while this is simply about, death and loss.

Death is a fundamental element of the human condition. Death defines and delivers life. If could live forever you would hardly be motivated to live, because there is always time. You may suffer too long, you might see too much and you could have a lot less to do than you imagined, especially considering forever.

Three stories run in parallel, one in which the surgeon is trying to save his wife, that's today. One where the knight tries to save his queen during the Spanish Inquisition by finding a fountain of everlife, that's the past. And finally, the one on an spiritual plane somewhere in the deep future where the enlightened man travels to Xibalba, a distant galaxy, to find rebirth and unending life for someone who has grown into a tree. In the end finding the reality of life and death himself.

Originally this movie was supposed to cast Brad Pitt but just before it could start he left and joined Troy. The production closed this movie down because the expense had gone too high. The sets were auctioned. Years later the movie was revived with much smaller budget and then got made with Racheal Weisz, Arnofsky's girl friend and Hugh Jackman from X-Men. I believe it turned out to be a good movie though not commercially because he probably did not put it just right for the viewers at large.