Kaleidoscope of confusion

The Fountain offers small answers to big questions | Megan Basham

The wisdom of the world is on full display in the latest effort of writer/director Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream, Pi), The Fountain (rated R for violence and sexuality). Telling the tale of one love through three lifetimes, it jumps from 16th-century Europe where Tomas and Isabel battle the Inquisition to modern America where Tommy and Izzy battle cancer to 26th-century space where Tom the astronaut floats in a bubble and battles himself.

While that may sound like the makings of an intriguing romance, it isn't. Instead, The Fountain is a collection of psychedelic images that will leave all but the most throwback of hippies lost and irritated.

In a film filled with more symbols than the Chinese alphabet, one of the most contrived is the couple's surname, "Creo"—Spanish for "I believe." Thomas (Hugh Jackman), a medical researcher, believes that, given enough time, he can save his tumor-ridden wife. The dying Izzy (Rachel Weisz), a writer, believes in an amalgamation of religious teachings that include Mayan myths about the underworld, the Old Testament account of the Garden of Eden, and Eastern nature worship.