James is "Critiquing the Critics" over The Fountain

Regular reader James has sent in his two cents on the criticism that Darren Aronofsky's visually specatcular movie The Fountain generated from critics. You may remember the film was notoriously booed at last year's Cannes festival. Personally, I wasn't too found of the movie which I had been highly anticipating for a good number of years. It lacked depth amongst it's visuals and if you took each of the three storylines and put them into their own context, you would be left with three highly conventional and boring genre movies with zero character development and moral reasoning. I won't be as harsh to say it was 2 hours of my life down the drain because of the awesome visuals but I truly believe the film has little or no message. The most I could take from it was not to waste life on your life working when you can go out and play in the snow with your loved ones. Come to think of it, "Life is to short" is just about the only message I could take from the movie. So although I disagree with what your saying mate, I'm posting your article anyway as OWF is all about giving you readers a voice and I'm sure there will be people who side with your opinion over mine...

I often gaze into sites such as Rotten Tomatoes and look at their reviews before and after I see a movie. Most of the time the consensus is fairly harmonious with my own subjective opinion, but sometimes it is so horribly off. Example, THE FOUNTAIN. It received a measly score, 50%, suffering much criticism: "The Fountain's message is that life is short, so we should make the most of it, and that's a message which should take one of two centuries, and one or two hairstyles, at most." "An artsy-fartsy disaster...a would-be film of ideas that runs dry of them very quickly." OK, now despite the obvious lack of insight these people possess (The Fountain's message is that life is short? I mean were we even watching the same movie?) there are other mishaps in these reviews. Of course they are subjective, as are all reviews, but it isn't fair to admonish something one does not understand. The Fountain had layers and layers of symbolism, Biblical analogies, traces of Buddhism, spiritual development, the completion of life through death and a myriad of other different, and just as deep, themes and messages. These little seeing-eyes into space, time and ourselves that Darren Aronofsky constructed are readily available had critics taken the time to actually peer into them. It is sad, to see the pioneers of criticism in the film industry not invest the time and effort to review something thoroughly. Aronofsky has created a visual chef d'oeuvre coated with symbolism of all kinds, and yet it is blatantly ignored by most, if not all critics. Then a movie like Die-Hard 4.0 can receive a 75%. It goes to show a biased in the film industry...specifically a lower standard and a warmer reception to movies that need little to no cerebral activity.

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