Immanuel Kant, the Prussian theorist with obvious OCD tendencies, is a
pioneer in the realm of enlightenment theory. The man was not sparse in words
and had much to say about tastes and the beauty of nature and art. He strived
to categorize everything and even put “the sublime” in a category of its own
and proceeded to subcategorize that. One point that he emphasized was that we
can never know the true nature of an object, only our perceptions of it. We
can’t know what it IS to be a table, only our use and assigned meaning of a
table. In Darren Aronofsky’s 2006 film, The
Fountain, a subject much more complex and much more important than a table
is addressed. Death, the imminent end, is a reality that all humans face but
can’t understand. It’s a concept so huge and mysterious that it would clearly
be classified as sublime in Kant’s filing cabinet of a mind. We still have
opinions and feelings when we face our death or that of others, however. Aronofsky
explores these differences through a similar protagonist in three different
story lines. Tom/Tommy/Tomas is forced to confront the overpowering notion of
death. In each case, a different approach is taken and exemplifies how the same
object or thing (death) can elicit very different responses from people.
Although the story (or stories) is not told linearly, for the sake of
clarity I will address the three story lines chronologically. The first is that
of Tomás the conquistador and his Queen, Isabel. The threat of death prompts
her to send Tomás to New Spain in order to find the Biblical Tree of Life to
procure eternal youth. She promises him that when he returns she shall be his
Eve and “together we shall live forever.” His quest is dangerous and he himself
faces death dozens of times. His men revolt and he kills many of them, the
natives attack and he kills them without thinking. His view of death is
selfish. The death of others is nothing to him. Having been a celebrated
soldier, he takes no thought in the death of his enemies or those who oppose
him. Even his own life is worth the risk on his search. The most important life
to spare is that of his queen. Not only because she is an idealized ruler, but
because he is in love with her. But as he nears the Tree, fights the natives,
and kills the high priest, he begins to feel the weight of death – the finality
of it. He proclaims, “There is no hope for us here, only death.” This thought
exposes him for what he is: scared. For Tomás, death is the opposite of hope.
It’s the worst thing that can happen and he fights and kills his way to finding
a way to end it for his Queen and for himself. In the end, the tree of life is
exactly that: a tree that creates life. As he is turned into new life in the
form of flowers, he yells and screams, pulling the flowers out of his wound,
fighting it until the bitter end. In being confronted with the death of his
loved ones, he is forced to consider his own mortality and refuses to accept
it.
Tom, in 2005, not only refuses to accept it, but is convinced that he is
better than it. When his wife, Izzy, is dying of a brain tumor he invests all
of his time and effort into finding a cure. All she wants in her last moments
is to be with him, but he can’t see past the cure. When she dies he is,
understandably, upset. He immediately rushes back to the lab in order to do
more research. His assertion that “death is a disease” emphasizes his notion
and perception of death: it is a defect that needs to be fixed. This notion is
also in defiance of death, but not with the same careless aggression as
portrayed by Tomás. The cure, or beginnings of a cure, comes from the bark of a
tree in South America. This tree is also a Tree of Life for Tom, giving life
and eternal youth to the monkeys that are experimented on. But, like Tomás, he
doesn’t get what he wants from it: to heal his wife. She dies anyway and that’s
something he can’t accept. Although at the end of his story he plants a seed
over her grave, it’s not necessarily because his view of death has changed. It
may be symbolic that the seed of change has been planted, but it will take time
and care to tend it into a healed heart. His response, though, is to fight
death, not run from it or face it.
Tommy, the futuristic space traveler, has traces of both of his
protagonist predecessors. He is literally running from death by trying to get
the tree, a representation of Izzy or Isabel, to Xibalba, a dying star. He recreates
their story in tattoos all over his body as a way to never forget and in never
forgetting, live forever. He is haunted by both stories while in his bubble,
mostly by Izzy wanting him to go for a walk and finish her book. It is only in
this storyline that Tommy/Tom/Tomás acknowledges his own imminent death. He
finally says, “I’m going to die” with a smile, a laugh, and an acceptance. Then
he lets go. He is literally separated from the tree and forms his own bubble
where he sits and waits for Xibalba to explode around him. His perception of
death, then, becomes the advice Izzy tells Tom: “Death is the road to awe.” He
accepts death as a reality. He admits to not understanding it, but welcoming it
regardless. As Tommy is facing the end that is near, Queen Isabel reappears and
repeats her promise, “together we shall live forever,” taking on a new meaning,
implying that in death they will be together, since death is just the start of
new life. This theory is realized when the explosion revives the dead tree into
a thriving, lush tree.
Besides the obvious struggle with the end of life, all three story lines
have similar motifs. The tree, which represents life, is prominently featured
in every story. Even as the Queen, Isabel’s dress resembles the growing roots
of a tree. In all three stories, circles are found everywhere: in windows, in
holy relics, in clothing and designs, and the bubble. This cyclical pattern
suggests the theory that death is just another beginning, an unending loop of
life. The story of Adam and Eve, explicitly talked about in the Spanish story,
is definitely a prominent theme throughout. Tom and Izzy are representations of
the first father and mother: Eve realized that only through death could they
live the life they were meant to and Izzy realizes that death is an important
and inevitable Truth. Adam, reluctant at first, comes to understand Eve’s
reasoning as the film suggests Tom will too someday. The music, beautiful and moving, helps the
audience along. It is soft and sad throughout most of the film until the
explosion of Xibalba when it becomes strong and powerful, just like Tommy who
accepts death.
The Age of Enlightenment stressed the importance of the individual and
reason over tradition and religion. A subject as universal as death is a
profound way to explore the individual reactions different people have and the
importance of finding those personal beliefs and opinions on your own, not
through tradition. It is also a fantastic medium in which to explore Kant’s
theory of individual perceptions being the only Truth we can ever know. In The Fountain, no answer is given as to
what death is, what it’s supposed to be, or how we are to react to it. It
simply shows the variety that we as humans can feel.
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