The 22nd year of being Ryan Hartley, documented.

Watching Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain will leave you with one question: “What the heck just happened?” I consider myself something of an intellectual, someone capable of dealing with a plotline that isn’t the usual mainstream Hollywood force-feeding that we’re subjected to, but truth be told, I wasn’t able to make head nor tale of the three divergent storylines contained in Fountain. Across three time lines (16^th Century Spain, Modern Day America and, I don’t know, Bubble Future, I guess) Hugh Jackman searches for the Tree of Life. I don’t know why it’s called The Fountain and not The Tree, but that is really the least of the mysteries you’re confronted with. Frankly I’m not even sure that there are three timelines; for all I know they could be stories or dreams or the stories dreams tell their children.

Hugh is searching for the aforementioned tree of life either because his wife is dying or because the Queen of Spain told him to. Both of these are played by the lovely Rachel Weisz. I’ve just got around to watching Constantine and then re-watching the Mummy II (it was on TV- a moment of weakness – forgive me!) and by her mere presence Miss Weisz makes things better. In fact the film’s strongest quality is that it is just so beautiful to look at. Quite apart from the actors themselves, the film is visually breathtaking. The effects and the locations were enough to get me to hit the freeze-frame button on more than one occasion. The soundtrack is hauntingly beautiful (as much of a cliché as that is) and worth listening to even apart from the film. In fact, the only real problem for me was that I had no idea what was going on. I’ve heard it said that this is not a movie that you can ‘get’, that it should be taken as something ‘more abstract’. To me that sounds like the pompous posturing of someone who had no idea what he just saw and was embarrassed to admit it.

The Fountain was a visually arresting, but ultimately unsatisfying film that left confused and a little exasperated. But it had Rachel Weisz in it so I might watch it again.

Sidebar – Director Darren Aronofsky is married to Rachel Weisz.