Death is the road to awe. - The Fountain

[Heather19]

So now if he is "living forever", what about Izzi. Will she be able to join him again since he planted a seed above her grave. Was he in a sense giving her eternal life?

[Letti]

I think if we look at things this way... we all have eternal life but in different forms. So does Izzi. That's what the movie tells me.

[Heather19]

Thanks Letti, that does make sense.

[Letti]

Thanks Letti, that does make sense.

Music to my ears.
But I guess there are lots of interpretations. I hope we will read more here.

[Patrick19]

I'm glad that I've found some people who enjoy this movie as much as I do! My fiance refuses to watch it again with me after we saw it in the theatre because she didn't understand it much the first time. I'll admit... I needed a second and third viewing to get my mind around some things. Letti, I'm glad that someone shares my ideas on the movie - I'm not crazy after all!
There's a billion things to say about this movie - Darren Aronofsky and Clint Mansell are an awesome pair with films. Clint Mansell and the Kronos Quartet also blow my mind every time they do something together.
What I really like about this movie is knowing the process that it took to finally put it on the big screen. I think they talk a bit about this on the DVD if you watch the special features, but it took a very long time to get this thing going. They had originally lined up Brad Pitt and I want to say someone like Cate Blanchett for the main roles, but then hit some snags and they both had other things to do so they lost them. The also created a huge Mayan set, but had to tear it down, if memory serves, because they went over budget. In the face of all this difficulty, they were still able to finish it.
Definitely love this movie and again, glad to have found a few others who enjoy it!

[Letti]

Great to see you here, Patrick19.

[Jean]

thank you Melikey for giving me this link! I will read what everybody has posted

[Melike]

I think Letti and I should post our conversation of us left on an other world.

[Jean]

please, please do!

[fernandito]

The Fountain is an amazing film, on both a visual and aesthetic level. Admittedly I've only seen the film once, so I might need a couple more viewings to truly grasp everything this wonderful film has to offer.

[Letti]

I think Letti and I should post our conversation of us left on an other world.

Good idea. I don't dare to post yours without your permission but here is mine (posted on another board a long time ago).

The Fountain
(just my two cents)

So the way I see it this movie is not about the past or the future (however its symbols might come from there) but the present. The very present of the two people who love each other a lot and are fighting with cancer and their sorrow very hard.
What's the hardest thing we need to accept and process. If you ask me it's death.

We have 3 story lines in the movie but in my opinion just one of them is the reality. When we can see Izzi and Tom in the present. The other two are just fantasies with full of symbols of the wars of these people's souls. That's how they try to accept the unacceptance.

The way they try to handle the situation is very different and similar at the same time.
* Izzi is writing a book... the main charahcters are symbolizing her and her love, Tom and their fight with death.
The Spanish Queen is herself who asks her true-hearted conquistador to find a tree far away in the land of Maya that can give forever life to everyone.
She can't write the last chapter because of 3 reasons.
- She doesn't really know how to finish it. The topic is not easy at all. She feels it but she can't write it down.
She talks about it to Tom as well:

Izzi: Remember Moses Morales?
Tom Verde: Who?
Izzi: The Mayan guide I told you about.
Tom Verde: From your trip.
Izzi: Yeah. The last night I was with him, he told me about his father, who had died. Well Moses wouldn't believe it.
Tom Verde: Izzi...
Izzi: [embraces Tom] No, no. Listen, listen. He said that if they dug his father's body up, it would be gone. They planted a seed over his grave. The seed became a tree. Moses said his father became a part of that tree. He grew into the wood, into the bloom. And when a sparrow ate the tree's fruit, his father flew with the birds. He said... death was his father's road to awe. That's what he called it. The road to awe. Now, I've been trying to write the last chapter and I haven't been able to get that out of my head!
Tom Verde: Why are you telling me this?
Izzi: I'm not afraid anymore, Tommy.

- She doesn't finish it because actually she wants Tom to finish it. Because it would mean that Tom could understand death, too. The essence of it. She would like to share this knowledge with him. Izzi is not afraid of death anymore because she feels she could understand it at last but she sees that Tom is still fighting with it with deep sorrow.
- And we know that she can't finish it because she dies.

* Tom is having a fantasy world... (No, I don't think it's the future and I will try to write down why.) The world we see could be from the future but there are many things that make me believe that it's just the other side of the same mirror.
He is traveling in a magical bubble with the tree (it's Izzi) to a dying start. (I must mention that I feel Izzi is the real dying star.)
First of all the difference. Izzi is trying to understand and accept death while Tom is frighting and trying to beat it.
The similarity is clear. Both of them create a fantasy world in their mind where they can hide from the shockingly dark world and where they can fight face to face with the idea of death.
But why do I say it's not the future? There are some major and minor signs that make me think so.
- The things that happen in the present happen in this fantasy world as well immediately. When Izzi dies so does the tree. It's the same with the voices.
- We can see this "world" when Tom is alone... when he is sleeping... he is working in his office... when he has the chance to fly deep into himself..
- The tree has hair... okay, we can think that it's the future and Tom is flying in a bubble to a dying sun with this tree but trees have no hair. But this one does. Like Izzi on her neck..
And there are more symbols that can't work in the future theory.
- We can hear "Finish it..." coming from the background from the beginning of the movie and we can think: "Hey, Izzi says it later so it can't be Tom's fantasy" BUT I believe Tom hears it even before Izzi asks him to finish her book because he thinks and feels that Izzi asks him to finish his word - with other words Izzi asks him again and again to find something that can save her.
And that's what Tom feels. He feels he hasn't got enough time he needs to finish it in time that's why he is not with his love who is fighting and suffering (and writing her book) at home by herself. Tom can hear Izzi's words in his mind... I wish he had known that his love wants only one thing... to be with him.
- And the biggest one is the end of the film I will write about a bit later.

I know these things might not convince others but for me this story can be a nice circle if we think this way and this is the only way I can think about it.
Can we call that the future just because we can't understand it? The real mysteries are not in the future but in the soul.


Okay, now I must go to work. I will continue it later.
Thank you for reading. The hardest things are just coming.

[Melike]

Letti, I was going to ask you permission to post yours too.

And, I am not surprised to see your new combo. Last night when I re-read this thread, I decided to change mine, too.

This was one of the most delightful movie discussion we(you, Susan and me) had.

As Letti explained before,we have three storylines,but I prefer to call them ''different parts of the time line''.From the fist time I watched it -I didnt read anything from the official site or any other site- I thought the bubble is the future;maybe some kind of future(that sounds meaningless but I'll explain what I mean trough the end of the post*)...

The movie starts with the past part of the time line, than skips to the future.The past part of the time line is combined with(or starts with) Izzi's book and (ends with)Tom's inner world(Tom finishes it).
Present time is the world Izzi has cancer and Tom tries to fight it,he thinks it is the only way to beat death,Izzi tries to accept the situation not to beat.That causes another war in Tom's soul:
1-Quit working on the cure (in his mind this means let the cancer beat Izzi) and stay with her while she is still alive,
2-Simply:Find the cure (in the end,in the middle of the burial remember that he says something like this:''This is just a disease,nothing different,there is the cure,I have to find it!'' ) That shows us,how impossible is to accept death for Tom.

Now it is the difficult part:Future.After this things that I write will sound surreal(maybe thats one of the reasons I estimated events in my mind like this;I want it to be surreal,damn it,this is a movie; not real life,please,different things have to happen... smile.gif ) Here is another reason for me;as I mentioned before,this future thought is more cruel(''Can you think living with the three in a buble so long,missing the person you love?''),so life is cruel...
(p.s.:I am not trying to proove that Letti's inner world theory is wrong;actually I dont think its wrong)

The Future:
Somehow long years pass,Tom achieves to stay with the tree / Izzi(?) ...
Bubble travels to the heart of Xibalba(nebula has force of gravity,untill the moment comes nebula contracts,colapses;then explodes).During this time we watch flashbacks.Tom is still the same:Fighting to save Izzi the tree,and still answers Izzi the flashback,the day-dream; ''Stop it'' when she says ''Finish it''.

The Ending:
As a whole,the story is another circle inside;the end is binding to the begining;so they become the same as in the idea of the mayan belief about the infinity.
The tree dies,he cries ''dont die'',Izzi the flashback appears he shouts at her:
''What do you want?'' ''Leave me alone'' ''Stop it!''.
After the conversation between them,at this point,he -at last- says he knows what to do and finishes it,(he says ''I'm gonna die'' Izzi:''Together we're gonna live forever'') after he is seperated from the tree-bubble, in another little one,in his mind he finishes the story.
In the hidden mayan pyramide the Tom from the future appears in front of the warrior,floating in the air.He calls him ''The First Father''.You know,they say during the movie,The First Father 'sacrificed' himself;did not live forever.(Here it is again; death is the answer to immortality)

The wedding ring:
In the past,he loses it when he found the tree of life.After he applied the sap on his injury,he takes the ring out from his pocket and prepares to wear it,flowers grow out from his injury so he panics because of the pain and drops the ring into the grass.
(Then he becomes the grass&flowers...)
In the present,he takes off it before the surgery to Donovan,the monkey they used for experiments,while he's cleaning his hands.

He finds it,in the future part of the time-line.That fits the moment he realises what he has to do,and leave the tree-buble with a seperated little bubble,taking a position of a person meditating.He wears it before explosion.I think here the ring is another flashback-image that comes to him when he is lightened by understanding of acceptance.Because he realises that he loses the ring when -simply- trying to deny the death.

(Izzi as Queen Isabella gives him the ring and says something closer to this: ''You shall wear it when you find Eden, and when you return, I shall be your Eve.'' In the future,in the seperated bubble,when he is close to death,close to heart of Xibalba the ring appears.
Finding Eden(tree of life),is eternal life;he shall wear the ring.
Reaching nebula's core,means death;he wears the ring.
Finding life is finding death.)



*At the top I used a phrase ''some kind of a future'',I meant that this may not be really ''the future'' we understand as a place in time.Maybe we can think that the movie is telling one story in three different ways;using past time wearing a novel mask,present time dressed like reality,and the future painted as a surreal picture on canvas.And the director uses his visual,idiosynchratictrick and brilliant tricks to create crossings between stories (like the hair on trees's body and on Izzi's neck , extraordinary changing-angle of the camera following the car when we see Tom is driving to hospital to see Izzi.The same trick is used for the past time,when Tom is riding the horse...)

And if you haven't seen before take a look at this:


Maybe questions are the answers,in this situation,like death and life.

Well, I was searching for information about Maya Religion, myths, language, Xibalba, and the connection between Xibalba and Orion...
Maybe you've already known these, I don't know. But I wanted to write here something, too.
Here is the main story about downfall of Xibalba:

Hero Twins
In the lore of the Quiché Maya, One and Seven Hunahpu were the first generation of hero twins. These boys were passionate ballplayers. They were so good at it, and so noisy about it, that they came to the attention of the Lords of Death. The rulers of the Underworld sent messengers to summon them to a ballgame. They were told to bring their rubber ball and their protective gear. Instead, they hid them up under the rafters of their mother's house.
Then they set out for Xibalba, the kingdom of the Lords of Death. At the bottom of a cliff, they made it safely across a river of spikes, then a river of blood and a river of pus. When they came to the throneroom of the Lords of Death, they greeted them by name. Only these weren't the Lords of Death at all, but carved wooden replicas. This was a test, and they had failed it. "No hard feelings," said the Lords of Death. "Have a seat." The twins sat right down on a burning bench and shot right back up again. For failing tests like these they were sacrificed. Their bodies were buried under the ballcourt in Xibalba.
But the head of One Hunahpu was placed in the fork of a tree. A maiden named Blood Woman approached the tree, and the head of One Hunahpu spoke to her. And when she reached out her hand, he spat into it. The saliva of One Hunahpu grew into babies in the womb of Blood Woman. And she gave birth to the Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque.

Here's how the Hero Twins found out that they were destined to be great ballplayers: They were trying to make a garden, but every time they cleared away the underbrush, the forest animals put it back again. They tried to snare the animals but had no success until at last they caught a rat. They held his tail over the fire (which is why rats have no hair back there). They were starting to kill him when the rat protested, talking fast to save his hide. "Look, you two aren't cut out to be gardeners anyway," he squealed. "There's something you'd be better at. I'll tell it for some food."
And the rat told them about how their father and uncle had been great ballplayers, and how they were cut out to be great themselves. "You just need the proper gear," said the rat. "And I happen to know where they hid it."
But the rat didn't want to get caught in the house by the Twins' grandmother. So they let him loose in the wall and then asked their grandmother for food and drink. The water jar needed filling, because they had secretly emptied it. So their grandmother went out to the well. And the boys let loose a mosquito that punctured her water jug, so water leaked out every time she filled it. While she was gone, the rat bit the twine that held the ball gear to the ceiling, and down it fell.

So one day they were playing ball like their father and uncle before them. Their gleeful shouts were heard down below in Xibalba. The Lords of Death were affronted. These twins were no more humble than the others. And so messengers were dispatched, summoning them to a ballgame in Xibalba. It broke their grandmother's heart to think that she would lose her grandsons to the Lords of Death, just as she had lost her sons before them.

But this generation succeeded where the first had failed. They knew that the Lords of Death expected to be greeted by name. So one of them plucked a hair from his shin, and it turned into a mosquito. And the mosquito went on ahead and bit the first Lord of Death. Only there was no reaction, since this wasn't a real Lord of Death at all but only a wooden replica. Then the mosquito bit a real Lord, and he let out a cry. "What's the matter?" asked the one seated next to him, calling him by name.
And when the mosquito bit the other Lords and each cried out in turn, the twins learned all the names. Then they entered the throne room of Xibalba and declared that they weren't about to say good morning to wooden dummies. "Then have a seat," said the Lords of Death, gritting their teeth in frustration.
"Not on that cooking griddle," said the Twins.
Now the Twins were challenged to a series of ordeals, each in a special "house". In the Dark House they were given a torch and two burning cigars. They were supposed to return these in the morning just as they had received them. Their father and uncle had let the torch burn out, and they had smoked the cigars. But the Hero Twins knew better. They swapped a macaw's scarlet tail feathers for the torch's flame. And they stuck fireflies on the ends of their cigars.
When they were sent to the Razor House, sharp blades were supposed to cut them to pieces. But they convinced the blades that their job was to cut up animals, not hero twins. And when they were sent to the Jaguar House, they distracted the tigers by feeding them bones. The Cold House they survived by locking out the cold. The Fire House didn't burn them to ashes, but only toasted them golden brown.
It was when they were sentenced to the Bat House, they made their first mistake, in accordance with their destiny. Hunahpu decided to peek outside the blowgun and see if it was morning yet. When he did so, a bat sliced off his head and it went rolling out onto the ballcourt of Xibalba. His brother called all the animals together, asking each to bring its favorite food. The coati brought a squash, and with the help of the gods this became a new head for Hunahpu. Meanwhile the Twins told a rabbit to hide outside the ballcourt.

When the Lords of Death started the game, they used Hunahpu's head for the ball. As far as they were concerned, this made them victors automatically. But when they kicked the ball, Xbalanque deflected Hunahpu's head flying toward the rabbit's hiding place. The rabbit hopped off, and the Lords of Death thought it was the bouncing ball and raced off in pursuit.
The boys got Hunahpu's head back and put the squash in its place. When the game began again and Xbalanque gave the ball a particularly energetic boot, it split open and all its seeds came spilling out. The Hero Twins had defeated the Lords of Xibalba.
So the Lords of Death, with all their tricks and all their tests couldn't kill the Hero Twins. But still the boys knew that they would have to die for their quest to be complete. They even knew how the Lords of Death would kill them. So when they were called before the Lords of Xibalba and challenged to a new and different game, they knew it was a trick. "See this oven?" said the Lords of Death. "Bet you can't jump over it four times."
"We're not falling for that one," said the boys, and without any further ado they jumped right into the flames. At this point the Lords of Death made a big mistake. Instead of throwing Xbalanque and Hunahpu over a cliff or hanging their bodies in a tree, they ground their bones on a grinding stone and sprinkled them in the river. This was the only way that the Twins could come back to life. And come back they did, first as catfish and then as their normal selves.

Only now their outward appearance was different. They looked like tattered beggars, the kind who go about dancing and performing tricks for a living. And their tricks were amazing. They'd burn a house down and then make it like new. They'd even sacrifice each other, laying down under the blade then springing up again. Word of their renown reached the Lords of Death, and they were summoned for a command performance.
The Lords of Death asked that a dog be sacrificed and then brought back to life. And when this was done, they asked that it be repeated with a human. And when this too was accomplished, they asked the Twins to sacrifice each other. So Xbalanque dismembered his twin and cut out his heart. Then he started dancing and commanded Hunahpu to get up and join him. And when Hunahpu got up as good as new, the Lords of Death were caught up in a frenzy of delight.
"Now do us!" they cried. And so the Twins sacrificed the two foremost of the Lords of Death. Only they didn't bring them back to life. And the other Lords knew that they had been defeated, and from that day forth Xibalba had lost its glory.

The Twins took the head of One Hunahpu from the tree in which it hung, and they put him back together and restored him to life. They left him there in a place of honor beside the ballcourt in Xibalba. And then the Hero Twins, Xbalanque and Hunahpu, their heroic quest complete, ascended into the sky and became the sun and the moon.

Back to The Fountain:
''Death and Disease*'',Lords of Death,rulers of Xibalba.
*''This is just a disease,nothing different,''says Tom. ''there is the cure,I have to find it!'' and One of the songs in the soundtrack is called ''Death is a disease.'' I now think that The Fountain is not just referring to Mayan culture,and it is also questioning and changing the notions, as we see here.
One other thing, Orion Nebula is mentioned to be some kind of a key or entrance or map to Xibalba. In the movie Izzy points Xibalba in the sky. Does she want to show her way to Xibalba, to death? Maybe.

[Letti]

Well, this new combo is ded to you. I cannot wait to see yours.
Yeah, that discussion was full of fire.

[Brice]

I think Letti and I should post our conversation of us left on an other world.

There are other worlds than these?

[Melike]

I think Letti and I should post our conversation of us left on an other world.

There are other worlds than these?

[alinda]

Awesome conversation , I have just googled this story , and simply must read view/anything more. Thanks for starting this journey for me. I'll catch up soon I hope

[Jean]

so will bears

[alinda]

Picture in my mind a woman skipping merrily down the road...with a bear

[Jean]

I hope I know who the woman and the bear are.........

[Brice]

I think Letti and I should post our conversation of us left on an other world.

There are other worlds than these?