I am the fountain, I am the swinger.

Every night I usually stick a film on to download, so that by the morning it should be ready for me to watch. I've been battered into watching The Fountain, Darren Aronofsky's sci-fi picture. Many a person has told me I'd enjoy it, and that I should watch it. I like Aronofsky's other work, Pi and Requiem For A Dream, so I gave it a shot.

This film is very wierd. Most of it centres around Tommy Creo, a modern day scientist trying out cures for a brain tumour on monkeys so that he can cure his wife. Inside of this, his wife is writing a story about Conquistadors, influenced by Mayan mythology, which parallels the 'real world' in many ways. The opening, and severel moments of the film centre around Tom, an ecospherical astronaut trying to resurrect the Tree of Life by floating towards Xibalba, a golden nebula which is the Mayan underworld.

I love mythology, I'd dedicate my life to exploring legend and lore if I had the money, and I could be arsed. The only thing I got from university was a passion for Arthurian legend and viking mythology. I've yet to explore them but I'd ideally like to do it soon, I need to get me a library card. This film uses it so well, from the Spanish exploring the new world, to find the tree of life, which could be the Tree of Life from Genesis, the Tree of Life from mayan mythology, or Yggdrasil, the tree of Life in Norse mythology. This tree is also used in the real world, with strippings of bark from a Guatemalan tree holding properties of youth and regeneration. And the future story focusses on Tom keeping this tree alive, and giving it the re-birth it cannot produce for itself.

This film is fantastic, in parts it reminds me of Boorman's Excalibur, a film which I watched at university and adored. In other parts, it's out and out 2001:A Space Odyssey. And then the rest is just a story of love, passion, and death. It's a beautiful piece of cinema, upon researching it I found out that Aronofsky's budget was cut due to an earlier and failed attempt to produce the film with Brad Pitt in Hugh Jackman's role as Tom/Tomas/Tommy. This meant he could not have as great a CGI budget, which the film definately requires, but instead he used Micro-photography to great huge space-like environments that were actually microscopic zooms of chemicals, and it works so well, as it ties into the scientific nature of Tommy's life.

I won't drag on about it. If you like 2001, you'll like this. If you're interested in mythology, you'll love this. And if you're like me, and like to drag the lake that is Wikipedia for hours on end after watching a film, even if you don't particularly like it, you'll love this.

On another note, last night I watched Swingers. I never EVER thought I'd tire of coolness being referred to as 'the money', but this film REALLY over uses it. Otherwise, it's alright, it's like Sideways for teenagers, Vince Vaughn doing what he does best, which is give people lectures in a nice way by arguing with himself really fast without taking a breath. I fell asleep before the end of the film, but if what I think is going to happen happens, it's crap, but if it doesn't, then I guess I'll see what Favreau has in store for me.