darren aronofsky

I had a bit of a Darren Aronofsky weekend having seen The Fountain on Friday and renting Pi on Saturday. I am a huge fan of his interim movie Requiem for a Dream about a group of recreational drug users who slide headlong into addiction.

And so on the strength of this movie (one of my top ten movies of all time) I went to see The Fountain. Build up for the movie has been in the form of an exquisite movie trailer....



... and with a brilliant website from the folks over at Hi-Res (who incidently did the site for Requiem for a Dream and was the site that launched their company... brilliant lo-fi style flash site here). The Fountain site is a superb experience website allowing you to navigate the three time zones that the movie is set in. The movie itself is gloriously pretentious and unapologetically incomprehensible, being mired in philosophy and religion. Most of the movie goers left scratching their head or laughing. For me though this movie was a lot more than that. It is flawed for sure. But the essence of the message is something that resounds deeply within me. Gorgeous art direction and underpinned by a sumptuos score by Clint Mansell, this film is a must for film fanatics. It feels much like the personal movies of the 60's. It explores themes of love, death and immortality whilst touching on old testament stories such as the Tree of Life from the garden of eden (the other tree was the tree of knowledge that Adam and Eve ate from). If The Fountain doesn't leave you chattering about the meaning of life you probably shouldn't have gone to see this movie in the first place. It is cerebral. It is challenging. But ultimately very rewarding. Did I mention it was beautiful to look at.

And so on to Pi. How I have managed to not see this movie for so long is beyond me. Shot in stark black and white and filmed in the streets and apartments of New York this film is designed to give you a headache. Again Clint Mansell is at the helm with the score and he produces a scratchy whiny soundtrack the crescendos in epic style as the waves of pain build in the movie. Like all Aronofsky movies he creates something of an opera with building intensity and painful release at the end. Pi is about a guy called Max who is a genius having looked at the sun for too long at the age of six and seemingly bringing everything into focus at that point. He is a brilliant mathemetician who stumbles upon a number of great importance. The movie touches on some really interesting themes such as the Fibonacci Sequence and the Golden Ratio. This 216 digit number is believed to be the key to the universe. From the point of view of the government agents who are persuing Max this represents the key to unlocking the seemingly chaotic system of the stock exchange. From the point of view of the Rabbi priests who are also persuing Max this number represents the true name of God which had been lost over the course of time. To Max this number is his gift and seems to manifest itself literally in a section of his brain, a realization with devastating results. Max is plagued by headaches and seizures which he can only control with an increasing amount of stimulants and drugs. Pi is movie genius. Raw, edgy and brilliant. If you loved Eraserhead and Waking Life this will resound deeply with you.



Aronofsky is clearly a writer/director with a lot to say and hopefully with a lot more to come. Unfortunately I suspect he may have to scale down his next effort a little as the studio execs will undoubtedly be disappointed with The Fountain's buzz and ticket sales. But this will surely be a good thing as the movie magic he creates does stem from his lo-fi and grittier film experiences.