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| FOUNTAIN, THE (2006) - R
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SBD Star Rating:
by Lew Irwin
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 Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain is another sci-fi film opening this weekend that has left critics scratching their heads. "The Fountain is either innovative science fiction or overwrought melodrama; I can't quite pinpoint which," writes Michael Booth in the Denver Post. "I realize I'm charged with reaching an opinion here, but it's not easy." A.O. Scott in the New York Times suggests the confusion is not necessarily a bad thing. "The Fountain leaves a tantalizing sense of puzzlement in its wake," he observes, while adding, ""Its techniques run too far beyond its ideas, which are blurry and banal, rather than mysterious and resonant." Most critics reach a similar conclusion. "Bloated and logy, and art-directed within an inch of its life, the movie shovels heaps of phony portent and all-purpose mystical imagery onto a thin and maudlin plot," writes Carina Chocano in the Los Angeles Times, who goes on to describe it as "just the type of impenetrable indulgence that gives the concept of personal artistic visions a bad name." Peter Howell in the Toronto Star sums up: "Guys like Darren Aronofsky give auteurs a bad name." On the other hand, Amy Biancolli in the Houston Chronicle writes that she was "transfixed" by the movie, calling it "a transcendent work of art, a vision of undying love that finds hope in grief, epiphany in death and life in the loss of Eden." Gene Seymour in Newsday predicts it will wind up as a cult classic. "Just because The Fountain made my head ache doesn't mean I think it's going to go gentle into obscurity," he remarks, adding, "One could easily imagine lines around an aerial block in 2066 waiting to see the director's cut of The Fountain." |
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