Buddhism / Bubble / Impalement
The Fountain (2006), Darren Aronofsky. February 24, 7pm. View count: One.
Man, I totally forgot to do the writeup for this one. This is in part because I didn't really have much to say about it; I didn't feel it was entirely successful, but it had some fun aspects, and when you examine its parts individually they usually hold up.
This movie was definitely a victim of How The Heck Do We Sell This -type advertising, insofar as I can recall. It's not actually about two people living together forever in any way, despite the tagline. It's about Hugh Jackman trying to accept that death is necessary; that more life is not always good. However, this latter concept, which I think is a requirement for the 'death is, uh, freeing or natural or happy or something' message to resonate properly, was only explicitly brought out in one scene (which I think is my favorite, due to its resemblance to a certain Grim Fandango concept).
I suspect in general the three incarnations were not as resonant with one another in small ways, as opposed to the large ways, as they could have been. The big concepts usually locked together in some way or another, but the smaller relationships didn't always. And the Mayan stuff, man, what a hollow construction. I'm never in favor of exoticising a culture such that they have had the Magic Secrets all along, and this particular go-round didn't really show me the error of my ways.
It's an attractive film, though, and the acting is usually pretty good. It's possible that another twenty minutes of screen time with the characters could have helped, but... maybe not.
Man, I totally forgot to do the writeup for this one. This is in part because I didn't really have much to say about it; I didn't feel it was entirely successful, but it had some fun aspects, and when you examine its parts individually they usually hold up.
This movie was definitely a victim of How The Heck Do We Sell This -type advertising, insofar as I can recall. It's not actually about two people living together forever in any way, despite the tagline. It's about Hugh Jackman trying to accept that death is necessary; that more life is not always good. However, this latter concept, which I think is a requirement for the 'death is, uh, freeing or natural or happy or something' message to resonate properly, was only explicitly brought out in one scene (which I think is my favorite, due to its resemblance to a certain Grim Fandango concept).
I suspect in general the three incarnations were not as resonant with one another in small ways, as opposed to the large ways, as they could have been. The big concepts usually locked together in some way or another, but the smaller relationships didn't always. And the Mayan stuff, man, what a hollow construction. I'm never in favor of exoticising a culture such that they have had the Magic Secrets all along, and this particular go-round didn't really show me the error of my ways.
It's an attractive film, though, and the acting is usually pretty good. It's possible that another twenty minutes of screen time with the characters could have helped, but... maybe not.