The Fountain Review

“Therefore, the Lord God banished Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden and placed a flaming sword to protect the tree of life”.

–          Genesis 3:24

 

The dying star which explodes and gives birth to other stars is the main symbol of the movie. Death is a creative act. Death gives birth to life. The characters in the Fountain humanly seek to learn how to deal with death. One is a scientist, the other is an artist. Their approaches are different with the scientist seeking to control death whilst the artist ultimately achieves grace. That is the artist gets a sense of all things flowing and that after death traces emerge (that is, being/life, remains).

Death opens the can of worms. Many things are learned about life and living with Rachel Weisz’s character Izzi dying and Hugh Jackman’s character Tommy being forced to realise the finitude of life and the inevitability of death. As a doctor, as a scientist he holds within him the idea (naturally obtained by such background) that control can keep being extended with the final boundary, death, being able to be subdued and controlled. Izzi towards her end realises the uncontrollability of death and the need to go with the flow, the need to live in the moment and savour it. Now the old question: what about after death? There are two possibilities: agnosticism, believing whatever will be will be which includes an acknowledgement that total oblivion is not assured. Redemption is the second, which goes further and holds the belief whilst living that a significant part of life shall, deservedly, justly, necessarily, survive and exist beyond death.

In this provisional, to the best of my abilities reflection I wonder whether the two seeming possibilities after death are really different. If one accepts that the original subjectivity of the person does not survive death then it is easy to say that a significant part of the person survives death (as the body decomposes, new life, plants, insects emerge from it, giving way to more life. This is scientific, chemical, material). A more audacious idea is possibly Nietzsche’s, that given infinite time (which does not seem infinite post-death) a person is fully reconstituted as another being, like Hindu reincarnation, or is resurrected either as himself/herself in the same/or another life.

 

Izzi, in the hospital after the seizure:  “When I fell… I was full. Held”. Commitment/Grace is expressed with these words. Although we control so much of out lives, most of them surely, being out of control punctures our lives with the paramount of death. Amor Fati, love of fate is required, being able to roll with the punches.

 

Tommy is back at the lab. Questioned why is he here and answers “why the fuck do you think I’m here   !?”. The character thinks control is the ultimate favour, the way to fulfil a relationship. The doctor he quarrels with is the contra argument “you can’t fix everything!”. When Izzi gives him the book to finish, Art and the Word show him the way. He realises he can’t “finish it” with control, but needs inspiration, something from beyond. He has to open himself, becoming vulnerable and give up notions of power and mastery.

What do we do when the other is dying? We listen and do what the other wants, I believe is the contention of the movie. To try and control the situation, e.g. try to fight death and extend life is not the answer (is it an answer or procrastination, meta-ing out of the immediate with cowardice?). We live in the moment and try to make the intention of the other pleased by using all of our intention and focus to listen and answer as best we can through promising (that contingent phenomenon which is the best and only communication we have, of making ourselves heard across the chasm where the other resides). All we can do with relationships is promise, there is no synthesis which assures relationships will continue. They are ultimately patchwork quilts, as warm as each person experiences. Healthy or not, good or not is based on judgement.

 

I’ve been talking about death as serenity, nirvana, being at one with the universe. Or is it committing to something (like a book or a relationship, or the full spectrum of frail realities and matters and circumstances which make up an individual life? To do that requires acknowledgement and feeling on one’s nerve endings of the particularity and singularity of one’s life. Doubt just jaggedly intersect one’s commitment, one’s stance towards life as otherwise commitment is universal, being committed always and forever. As Kierkegaard knew one must embed oneself, be at peace with the world in it’s temporality and spatiality and not try to hook oneself on transcendentals, which are always false messiahs who are irrelevant to life.

 

How does one know they are in the moment? How does one know they possess grace? I forget Kierkegaard’s writing on the Knight of faith but I believe they never think it, for to maintain through reflection is to universalise. The truth is subjectivity, feeling, being. Not fearing.

 

The funeral scene sums up the main of the movie. Tommy denies death as beholding truth, eulogy accurately states Izzi had wholeness, everything together, grace, goodness towards her end.

 

The Tommy marks himself with ink, cuts into his skin. He marks himself after her death til he becomes a tree laced with circles. He looks at his marks and says “you pulled me through time”. Is this the epiphany where he realises the finitude, temporality and spatiality, that is the singularity and uniqueness of life? Afterwards back in the present he says “stop dying: that’s our goal.”.

 

In the future as he nears the collapsing star the tree of Izzi dies. The Zen Buddhist circle of fading where it encircles?

 

Izzi keeps saying “you do, you will” know how to finish. Every act has no certain, necessary justification, as many a philosopher’s reflection has shown. You often in life have to do, just step. Step where things feel right. Wade through the water touching the stones.

 

So how does one receive all of this? How does one go on? Primum Vivere, Deinde Philosophari [Live first, then philosophise].

 

 

Raw notes which birthed the essay.

 

Fountain pen. Life and Death as interdependent. Grace and giving-away-ness as the necessary approach to death. The scientist vs. the artist. Love? The possibility of a relationship. Relationships are precariousness (a promise, a simple promise binds them). Knight of Faith? The universe is based on nothingness, on chaos, on death and thus springs life and order. Can someone life forever (pure presence?)? Only in cycles, only in rebirth (karma?), only through emergence and difference. There are situations where there are double-binds/or where there is no right answer/approach e.g. a loved one dying. The “best” situation is where the relevant subjectivities are at piece. Internal harmony, music, art (where a piece/work seems, nay does only have one conclusion, a novel, composition, painting can only be finished one way [furthermore does it’s unfolding create what it is, what it is per se, i.e. it’s contrivance/creation make it as it should be: Zizek, something is impossible until it’s done]). Ring (cycles? Zen Buddhist self-effacing circle?).

 

How does the book feed into the movie? The characters in the book are them, them in the past? They write their past [hence also their future]?

 

“Death is the road to awe”. = Devotion/Obsession/Commitment is the road to grace (Blanchot/Kierkegaard).

 

Grace is the only possibility for overcoming death (surviving death??? In spirit, or does the spirit redeem the body, is that relevant/important? Is the intention/subjectivity all there is to spirit?)

 

Control versus no control. The scientist values control, the artist no control (don’t like the word, conceive of better one).

 

The artist longs for the first person, the valuing/finding significant, feeling. The artist lives with finitude/

 

The scientist values thought, the third person. The scientist desires eternal life.

 

Paradox: does the scientist give himself uncontrollably away to control (that is understanding/mastery of the universe?)