Movie Analysis: The Fountain

Updated 18-Dec-2006, see in-line for their location.

I went to go see the film The Fountain (2006) a few weeks back, and I'm still thinking about it. To me, that's a sign that I consider the film worth discussing. I won't have this be a simple review - you can find those everywhere on the web. Instead, I'm more interested in studying and dicussing the details of the film.

Whether you hated the film or loved it, it must be said that the film contains layers of symbolism. Through the use of these symbols, I think writer/director Darren Aronofsky tries to tell a completely different story, though with the same message. I'm going to explore in this article the various symbols and how I use those to come up with a theory for the "real" story behind the film.

Don't read on if you haven't seen the film but want to. It's filled with spoilers.

As a refresher, the film runs the viewer through three "time lines", all identifiable by the amount of hair on the main character, Tom (played by Hugh Jackman). There's the Sixteenth century, super hairy Jackman, the Twenty-First century needs-a-shave Jackman, and the baldy Twenty-Sixth century Jackman. In each time frame, Tom struggles with coming to terms with his love's death, and in so doing, his own mortality.

My Theory

I believe that there is a fourth story, a "real story" in which Tom imagines the other three.

My theory for the "real story" runs like this. Tom is sitting at his desk in the research lab when his wife, Izzi (played by Rachel Weisz), asks him to take a break from his cancer research to go for a walk with her through the snow. Tom tells her he can't, because he needed to operate on a monkey. Tom then sits at his desk for a while, and ponders a "what-if" scenario - what if I work long and hard enough and find a way for us to live forever? This is where, to me, the film starts, with baldy Jackman thinking about that scene.

The movie then covers these three what-if scenarios (or symbolic journeys, or what have you) as they play out in Tom's mind. The film ends with Tom deciding that he would rather spend the remaining days with Izzi, enjoying her company, than to spend that time in research, even if he did find a miracle cure. Through this journey, Tom faces his own fears of death and learns to accept it, and thus accepts the loss of his wife.

I assume this mostly from at the end when he walks in the snow with Izzi, she hands him a nut to plant with her coffin, and in the last scene he has the same nut. He also says, "Goodbye," indicating his acceptance of her death. And if you look very, very carefully while he wipes the snow off the gravestone with this left hand, you'll see a gold ring on his finger, meaning he hasn't lost it (Updated on 18-Dec-2006 - discovered about the ring). There are other items to help back this up, which I'll get to at the end.

Analysis of The Symbols

In each of the three main stories, we have a set of reoccuring symbols. I'll briefly describe each here, followed by their connection inside each story. Note that most of them refer to standard Judeo-Christian symbols.

• The Tree of Life: An obvious symbol, and central to the story. It represents eternal life.
• The Wedding Ring: In each story, we have a wedding ring, though it manifests itself in the tatto of rings similar to the rings of a tree in the Twenty-Sixth century story. This represents Tom and Izzi being together. My wife suggested that it can also represent a promise.
  
• The Flaming Sword: At the beginning, the film quotes from Genesis about how after Adam and Eve leave the Garden of Eden, the entrance is guarded by an angel with a flaming sword. This common symbol stands as a barrier to Tom reaching eternal life. In the Sixteenth Century, Thomas encounters an Incan priest wielding a literal flaming sword. In the Twenty-First Century story, Tom must cope with scientific scrutiny over the tree bark's safety or applicability to curing cancer before he can give it to Izzi. In the Twenty-Sixth Century story, Tommy must battle time to keep the Izzi tree alive until they reach the nebula.
• Garden of Eden: The Sixteenth Century Story has Thomas searching for the Tree of Life located in what they believe to be the Garden of Eden. Thomas finds this in the form of an ancient Incan temple. Twenty-Sixth Century Tommy journeys towards the Incan nebula Xibalba, which Izzi tells him represents the afterlife. Twenty-First Century Tom is a bit more confusing, but I think it's represented by Tom's hope for a time when Izzi is cured, but manifests itself as her grave in a farm.
• The Failure: In the Sixteenth Century story, a ceremonial dagger was used to discover the location of the lost Incan temple that houses the Tree of Life, but it is used to pierce the Tree of Life, which leads to Tom being killed before he can reclaim the tree for Isabel. In the Twenty-First Century story, Tom loses his ring and replaces it with a tattoo using the pen Izzi gave him. In the Twenty-Sixth Century story, the bubble habitat that guides Tommy and the Izzi tree to the Incan nebula of the afterlife cannot sustain the tree's life long enough before reaching its destination

From these collected symbols, and odd references like the Incan priest calling Thomas "The First Father" (Adam Kadmon), I feel that these stories are Tom's attempt at framing his struggle with the acceptance of death question in the context of Adam and Eve attempting to re-enter the Garden of Eden and the blissful, eternal youth they enjoyed there. Tom must make a decision between following Izzi into the light towards death but happiness, or into the darkness for a doomed attempt to cure the human condition, as though to fight against "divine will."

Symbols in the Sixteenth Century Story

This story presents the most straight forward representation of the symbols, which seems appropriate since it's a classic quest/action story. As such, it seems the best vehicle to explain the Garden of Eden framework which Tom creates.

The story, we are told, was written by Izzi in the Twenty-First Century. From the title of the book, "The Fountain," I take it that we are to interpret this story as inspired by Juan Ponce De Leon's search for The Fountain of Youth in the swamps of Florida.

Thomas is offered a quest to save his queen from death if he finds the Tree of Life, and is offered matrimony (shown by the ring) with the queen if he returns successful. He uses a ceremonial dagger to guide his way to a lost Incan temple believed to be the Garden of Eden. Upon reaching it, he faces an Incan priest with a flaming sword. He passes once the priest recognizes the dagger and calls Thomas "The First Father." Thomas then goes to the Tree of Life, stabs the dagger into the tree, drinks from it, and transforms into flowers before he can put on the ring.

During this story, the Inquisitor makes an important speech about how death is what defines us as humans, and how the body is a prison for the soul, which draws parallels to the story Izzi tells of the Xibalba fable.

One reviewer noted distinct sexual connotations when Thomas jabs the tree with the dagger, and drinks its fluids. On one level, I can see parallels between the male as a dagger/pen and female as a tree, and the subsequent secretions of liquid that follow. To me, though, the tree sap looks more like the sap from rubber trees.

Note that Needs-A-Shave Jackman only read the book after his decision to remain in the lab and work separate from Izzi. From the persective of the above theory, this means we must interpret this story as Tom's ideas of Izzi's perspective on the situation, not as Izzi's direct perspective.

Symbols in the Twenty-First Century Story

In the Twenty-first Century story, Tom is presented with a decision to either follow his wife, Izzi outside and enjoy the first snowfall with her, or to throw himself at his work to help find a cure for Izzi's cancer. We see Izzi go outside, with the bright sunlight, but instead Tom decides to find a cure and goes stays in the dark underground research lab, losing his ring in the process. He discovers that the bark of a rare South American tree, which reverses the effects of aging on a monkey. Since the bark doesn't reverse the monkey's cancer, he keeps searching for a cure. Izzi dies right before Tom learns that the monkey's cancer went into recession. In a fit of depression, Tom tattoos the ring on his finger (during which Jackman gives the best performance I've ever seen on the screen). Tom goes to her funeral, but refuses to accept her death.

Through all this, Izzi talks about connecting points like the Incan nebula as an afterlife, the story of living forever by having a tree planted on your grave, and being burried in a farm. That, with Tom's refusal to accept her death, leads us to the next story.

I see this story as Tom thinking of a fanciful story where he seems to ask, "what if I do the impossible and find a cure for death?"

Symbols in the Twenty-Sixth Century Story

This one is probably the most complex of the stories. It seems to represent a metaphysical landscape of Tom's mind, where he explores the different ideas and memories that form his decision to be with Izzi. All the Lotus Flower and Nirvannah symbols stand out pretty obviously here, telling me that this is most definitely not to be taken literally as a space traveller. However, we see the Pen and ring-tattoo from the Twenty-First Century story, Tom is haunted by the memories of that time-line, and in this time he discovers the ending to Izzi's story. Also, I think the director went out of his way to make the audience think the tree was the one planted over Izzi's grave, possibly of the same tree variety that Tom used to discover the cure for aging.

In this story, Tommy spends his days meditating, practicing Tai Chi, eating from a tree, making ink, tattooing tree-like rings on his arms with the ancient remnants of Izzi's pen, and hallucinating, all while taking a several hundred year journey to the Orion nebula. Moments before they reach the nebula, the tree dies. At this point, Tommy has the "enlightenment" moment where he decides that he was wrong those years ago and should have accepted death.


Other Possible Symbols

There are other symbols which merit mention, and some others which I think have deeper meanings than just those explained above. Here I attempt to touch on those.

The Fountain of Youth: I note this one first because it seems significant by its absense. Both the title of the film and the book which Izzi writes are called "The Fountain," which, I assume, is meant to bring to mind the idea of the Fountain of Youth. However, The Fountain of Youth is never mentioned in the film.

Water: With a name like "The Fountain," I imagined water to hold a significant meaning. However, where we see it, I can't come to any conclusions on what it means, or if it's supposed to mean anything. However, we see parallels between Thomas stabbing the Tree of Life and getting tree sap, Tom spilling the ink Izzi gave him, and the water inside the snow globe that both the Izzi tree and Tommy drink.

The Tree Of Life: This is the most obvious, and yet probably the most layered, symbol in the film. The film makes reference to this as being one of the two Trees (with a capital T) in the Garden of Eden. One critic I read berated this, saying that there was only the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. However, some versions in Genesis 2:8-9 state, "the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” There are other symbols we can bring into this, like the Qabbalistic Tree of Life, but I think that's going far beyond what the artist had in mind with this, even if there are conclusions we can get from that.

Mutinous Friends: This might be a larger symbol, but it doesn't quite fit that mold. Each of the three stories has friends which stand in Tom's way from his goal. In the Sixteenth Century, his crew conspires to kill Thomas so that they can return to Spain. In the Twenty-First Century story, Tom's co-workers attempt to keep him from working so diligently on his quest for the cure. In the Twenty-Sixth Century story, this seems to be Tom's own mind, but it's not as obvious.

Adam and Eve: Another symbol not directly referenced, but inferred via the Garden of Eden analogy, and the Incan calling Thomas the "First Father" (Adam Kadmon). In this light, one can see the whole of the movie as Adam and Eve searching to return to the garden of eden.

Starlight: Of note, we only see the sun at one particular point in the story (more about this later). In the Hairy Jackman story, when Thomas is given the quest to find the Tree of Life, and is presented with the wedding ring, Isabel allows the morning sun into her hall (but we only see the light that is cast, not the sun itself). Also, when he comes upon the Tree of Life, he also sees the morning sunlight. In the Jackman Needs-A-Shave story, Tom sees the sunlight as Izzi walks outside to the first snowfall. He and Izzi look up at the starlight together on the roof of their house, when Tom discovers that her condition has become very serious. He also sees the sun in the hospital when he parts the shades to look out the window while he waits next to Izzi. In the Baldy Jackman story, Tommy is surrounded by starlight. This looks to me to represent the bliss that comes when Tom and Izzi are together.