Aronofsky's The Fountain - what does the ending mean? [** SPOILERS **]

Sad Professor

Spoiler warning - no need for spoiler tags. This thread is about the ending of the film, which you've either seen and are able to discuss or you haven't. If you haven't seen it (you should, it's brilliant) then you've been warned.


I adore this film. It's so unique and brilliant and beautiful. I don't know of another film like it. Maybe 2001: A Space Odyssey. They both deal in very big ideas and are open to multiple interpretations. Aronofsky has thankfully kept his mouth shut about what it all means. This really is gift when a director does this because I think the mystery is very appealing.

My own basic take on the ending of the film is that the tree is a symbol for immortality. However, Future-Tom, much like Conquistador-Tom, has a flawed understanding of immortality. He thinks immortality is never dying. He seeks to avoid death by saving the tree whose sap is keeping him alive. All the while he is being haunted by the ghosts of his dead wife. But near the end of the film he experiences a kind of enlightenment. This scene here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVlx6mco7XY

This is the same tree that he plants over his wife's grave in 2005, so (as is implied) the tree contains something of his wife in it. Future-Tom realises that the only way to save the tree, the only way to truly live forever, and indeed the only way to be reunited with his wife, is for him to die. So that's what he does. He leaps out toward the dying star, embraces his death with calm and peace. And when the star explodes it obliterates him, scattering the atoms of his body back on to the dying tree which is revived, reuniting him with his wife in the cycle of life, death and rebirth - which according to the message of the film is true immortality.

This is just my take on it. Feel free to disagree.

There are plenty of other things in the film which I'm not really so sure about. Are all the timelines real? It's implied that the 16th century timeline is just Izzi's book, but what about the future timeline?

Also, near the end of the film we see the same scene from the beginning of the film repeated - Izzi asking Tom to go for a walk in the snow - but the second time Tom makes a different choice. He goes after Izzi instead of going to his lab. Is this real, or a dream? If it's real - how? Time travel?

Mickeroo

I've not seen this since I saw it in the cinema when it came out, can't really remember what the deal with the scene where they go for a walk is.

I don't remember being confused by the film at all, seemed to me that the Conquistadore parts are Izzi's book and so are the future parts, but the future parts were written by Tom and the ending you described is symbolic of him accepting his and his wife's mortality, accepting that he could not save her leading him to enjoy what little time he has left with her rather than obsess over the cure.

I'd need to watch it again but I'm pretty sure that the only parts that "really" happen are those in the present day and the rest is supposed to be the book.

roboshatner

Right just going to be honest i got 10 to 20 mins into this film and fell asleep it was god awful boring.,

Requiem is 100 100 times better

Sad Professor wrote: »

Spoiler warning - no need for spoiler tags. This thread is about the ending of the film, which you've either seen and are able to discuss or you haven't. If you haven't seen it (you should, it's brilliant) then you've been warned.


I adore this film. It's so unique and brilliant and beautiful. I don't know of another film like it. Maybe 2001: A Space Odyssey. They both deal in very big ideas and are open to multiple interpretations. Aronofsky has thankfully kept his mouth shut about what it all means. This really is gift when a director does this because I think the mystery is very appealing.

My own basic take on the ending of the film is that the tree is a symbol for immortality. However, Future-Tom, much like Conquistador-Tom, has a flawed understanding of immortality. He thinks immortality is never dying. He seeks to avoid death by saving the tree whose sap is keeping him alive. All the while he is being haunted by the ghosts of his dead wife. But near the end of the film he experiences a kind of enlightenment. This scene here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVlx6mco7XY

This is the same tree that he plants over his wife's grave in 2005, so (as is implied) the tree contains something of his wife in it. Future-Tom realises that the only way to save the tree, the only way to truly live forever, and indeed the only way to be reunited with his wife, is for him to die. So that's what he does. He leaps out toward the dying star, embraces his death with calm and peace. And when the star explodes it obliterates him, scattering the atoms of his body back on to the dying tree which is revived, reuniting him with his wife in the cycle of life, death and rebirth - which according to the message of the film is true immortality.

This is just my take on it. Feel free to disagree.

There are plenty of other things in the film which I'm not really so sure about. Are all the timelines real? It's implied that the 16th century timeline is just Izzi's book, but what about the future timeline?

Also, near the end of the film we see the same scene from the beginning of the film repeated - Izzi asking Tom to go for a walk in the snow - but the second time Tom makes a different choice. He goes after Izzi instead of going to his lab. Is this real, or a dream? If it's real - how? Time travel?

Kess73

Have a similar-ish take on the tree to what the OP has. The tree is the wife/her soul/her energy trying to get him to come to her, as he is already dead but just has not accepted it. He keeps fixing the tree and stopping himself from passing over to wherever she is waiting.

Once he stops fixing the tree, he is enlightened enough to follow her and does so.


Once they have moved on together they end up being able to inhabit in either an alternative reality or simply going back in time to when they can make certain small changes in decisions in an attempt to change outcomes. But I think that the film itself is just one of their earlier attempts to do that very thing and that they are caught in an endless cycle of going and coming back.

That's just my take on the ending though. The great thing about the film is that it leaves a lot open for each individual watching to make up their own mind as to what happens and why, and without any definite answer from Aronofsky each person's individual take on the film is valid.

roboshatner

please Im falling asleep right now even thinking about this movie.

FortuneChip

Mickeroo wrote: »

I'd need to watch it again but I'm pretty sure that the only parts that "really" happen are those in the present day and the rest is supposed to be the book.

Yeah, I agree with this. Sometimes people say if you learn it was all just a dream, or not real, it cheapens the film, but I think Mickeroo has hit on the purpose of the book.

At least I hope this is what was going on, otherwise a lot of that movie went well over my head!!!

Fantastic looking movie, and the soundtrack is absolutely amazing! Clint is a genius!

Mickeroo

^^ Yeah the soundtrack is amazing, the collaboration between mansell and mogwai was a great idea.

I think the explanation that all the non-present day stuff is in the book also makes the film a much deeper and more personal movie and for that reason I don't even consider it to be a sci-fi movie at all.

Sad Professor

The past and future time periods being part of the book would fit in with Izzi's repeated declarations to "finish it". However, I still think other parts of the film defy such a straightforward explanation. While it is made pretty clear in the film that the 16th century time period is part of Izzi's book, that doesn't mean it's fiction. It is a film about death and rebirth after all. Given how heavily influenced the film is by Eastern philosophies, each of these time periods could be seen in the context of a Karmic cycle of reincarnation.

Also, the idea that Tommy would choose to conclude Izzi's book about 16th century Conquistador with a psychedelic sci-fi ending seems a bit a mad. Especially since Future-Tom seems more closely connected with Tommy from 2005 than with the 16th century Tomas who dies beside the tree of life. I know he was grieving and all, but it doesn't really makes sense for him to conclude her story in that way.

I mean, in the present Tommy does discover a compound that can reverse ageing and cure diseases in monkeys, putting even that time period on fairly sold sci-fi footing. So it's not out of the question that all time periods are real, or at least as real as each other.

Mickeroo

Sad Professor wrote: »

The past and future time periods being part of the book would fit in with Izzi's repeated declarations to "finish it". However, I still think other parts of the film defy such a straightforward explanation. While it is made pretty clear in the film that the 16th century time period is part of Izzi's book, that doesn't mean it's fiction. It is a film about death and rebirth after all. Given how heavily influenced the film is by Eastern philosophies, each of these time periods could be seen in the context of a Karmic cycle of reincarnation.

Also, the idea that Tommy would choose to conclude Izzi's book about 16th century Conquistador with a psychedelic sci-fi ending seems a bit a mad. Especially since Future-Tom seems more closely connected with Tommy from 2005 than with the 16th century Tomas who dies beside the tree of life. I know he was grieving and all, but it doesn't really makes sense for him to conclude her story in that way.

I mean, in the present Tommy does discover a compound that can reverse ageing and cure diseases in monkeys, putting even that time period on fairly sold sci-fi footing. So it's not out of the question that all time periods are real, or at least as real as each other.

I think its natural for him to conclude the book that way as he's a man of science, the 16th century parts were Izzi's, her ending showing him being consumed by his quest for eternal life but it makes sense to me for him to write that he found a way to stay alive and try and be re-united with her considering the way he was obsessing about curing her in the present/real life. The scene where he decides to go for the walk with her rather than going to the lab shows he has learned to accept death as a natural part of life and that he realises he should have concentrated on spending time with her before she passed rather than stay in the lab.

I dont write off the re-incarnation possibility but I guess I just like the other one better Like you said one of the great things about this film is how open to interpretation it is.