Death is the road to awe|Nov. 22, 2006|Canada, United States|96 Min.|PG-13
Genre: Adventure;Drama;Romance;Science;Fiction
Description: The Fountain (2006) is a captivating film that weaves together three interconnected stories. In one narrative, Conquistador Tomás Verde battles Mayans in New Spain to enter a pyramid, where he confronts a Mayan priest. In another, a man resembling Tom tends to a towering tree inside a glass dome biosphere traveling through space, frequently disturbed by a woman named Izzi. In the present-day storyline, Tom Creo, a surgeon, desperately tries to save his wife Izzi from a brain tumor. He experiments with samples from a tree discovered in Guatemala, hoping to find a cure for degenerative brain diseases.
Izzi, who has accepted her mortality, writes a story titled “The Fountain,” which parallels Queen Isabella’s commission to Tomás Verde to search for the Tree of Life in Mayan territory. She asks Tom to complete her unfinished book. Together, they gaze at the golden nebula of Xibalba, where Izzi imagines their souls reuniting after death, inspired by Mayan beliefs.
After Izzi’s passing, Tom becomes obsessed with curing death itself, driven by promising results in reversing aging. His colleagues worry about his recklessness but support him both scientifically and emotionally during Izzi’s funeral. Following a story she once told him, Tom plants a sweetgum seed at her grave, symbolizing the Mayan belief in the deceased living on through nature.
In the Mayan jungle, Tomás Verde faces exhaustion and rebellion among his knights as they search for the Tree of Life. After a failed coup and the death of their guide, he leads a small loyal group to a pyramid, armed with a ceremonial dagger. The story culminates in a climactic battle with the Mayan priest. Meanwhile, the space traveler, whose identity remains ambiguous, engages in exercises that allow him to perceive and interact with the past.
The Fountain is a thought-provoking exploration of love, mortality, and the timeless quest for eternal life.
Cast director: Darren Aronofsky
Cast actor: Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz, Ellen Burstyn, Mark Margolis, Stephen McHattie, Fernando Hernandez, Cliff Curtis, Sean Patrick Thomas, Donna Murphy, Ethan Suplee
Original name: The Fountain