(2006) Director/screenwriter Darren Aronofsky's starry vision, using Christian and Buddhist imagery, is an attempt to answer the biggest questions about life: we've been here before.

A conquistador accepts a mission from his embattled queen ("Deliver Spain from bondage") to find in the jungles of New Spain the naval of the world, the earth's birthplace, the Garden of Eden, where a hidden, holy pyramid marks the location of the Tree of Life. A doctor in a research lab is trying to find a cure for death while his wife is dying of a brain tumor. A futuristic monk is rushing toward the Great Nebula of Orion in a space bubble with the Tree of Life onboard in hopes of saving the tree and himself.

Queen Isabel of Spain, threatened by the Catholic Church's inquisitors (the body is the prison of the soul; death frees the soul) for her belief that earthly life can be made immortal, gives Captain Tomas a ring (symbol of eternity) to place upon his finger once he has discovered the Tree of Life and supped upon its elixir, confiding to him: "Together we will live forever."

Following another seizure, Izzi gives her husband, Dr Tom Creo, a book she has been writing in longhand about a conquistador searching for the Tree of Life and of a golden cluster of stars in space the Mayans called Shibalba where souls go to be reborn, though the nebula is actually a dying star about to explode; she tries to assure her husband that she's not afraid: "Death is an act of creation." Her book is titled The Fountain with its twelfth and final chapter empty, for which she gives Tom responsibility to "Finish it." At the research lab Dr Creo thinks he may have discovered a cure for brain tumors in monkeys, using the bark from a tree found in Guatemala. Against accepted scientific procedure and his supervisor's admonition to proceed cautiously with the treatment, Dr Creo is desperately determined to try it on his wife; in the interim he has misplaced his wedding ring.

As the space bubble hurtles toward Shibalba, Tommy the monk, his arm encircled with multiple tattoos, breaks bits of bark from the tree for his sustenance ("I'm afraid") while repeatedly assuring the huge arbor (at the same time he seems to be speaking to the conquistador through the past while Dr Creo wants to say as much to his wife): "We're almost there. You'll make it. I won't let you die."

Repeatedly a scene occurs in which Izzi asks Tom to follow her into the snow; each time he refuses because he's so focused on his research to save her, unwilling to let her go. A Mayan warrior in the pyramid confronts the conquistador and shouts in his own language: "Death is the road to awe."

Hugh Jackman has the roles of reincarnation: Captain Tomas, Dr Tom Creo, and Tommy the monk; Rachel Weisz plays both Queen Isabel and Izzi. The film creates some confusion for those in the know: the image shown of the Orion Nebula is actually a region of star births, not of a dying star.

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Copyright © 2007 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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