The Fountain

After a bout of punishing physio, I took myself off to see the Fountain down t’Odeon (by the way I should mention that my passion for cinema has been re-ignited after watching the rather excellent Bertolucci film “the Dreamers” – as well as featuring spectacular nudity from “Bond Girl” Eva Green, it took me back to that very French belief in the intellectual magic of the silver screen).

The reviews of the Fountain that I read all said that it wasn’t as bad as one had been led to believe – however as these were the only reviews leading me to believe anything, I therefore hadn’t been led to believe that it was bad. Anyway, all in all, I’d agree that it wasn’t as bad as I’d been led to believe.

It reminded me a lot of Pan’s Labyrynth; both films weaved sad, naturalistic “real world” plots with fantasy/magic plots, leaving it open ended as to whether the fantasy plots were projections of the people in the real plots, or were to be taken at face value. In a way Volver did the same thing with the ghost story.

The Fountain was indeed confusing, and refused to spell out exactly what it was going on about, but I tend to like that in a piece of art. In our jaded pre-post-post modern world where we’ve seen it all and done that, ambiguity and fractured narrative seem as good a way as any to tell a story.

The low-budget special effects were excellent, particularly the use of micro-organisms grown in Petri dishes which were used to create the scenes of nebulous star systems. And the music was fantastic – Glass-like / Reichian repeating ambient patterns contributing to the dreamlike atmosphere.

The cinema was delightfully empty, but of course some bastard ended up next but one to me crinkling a heavy plastic packet of sweets and slurping on a giant cola, rattling his ice, and tapping on the plastic for good measure. Why oh why do cinemas sell that crap?