The editor would like to thank all involved for their time and effort on this edition of The Voice.

The opinions expressed in any Sweet Briar College publication or other forms of media are not necessarily those of the students, faculty, staff or administration. Therefore, Sweet Briar College is not responsible for its content.

Editorials represent the opinion(s) of the editor(s) and/or staff/guest writer(s).

This site is maintained by Anne Proctor. Please email any questions or comments concerning the web site to her.

The Fountain, It's Empty
By Irene Maslanik '07
STAFF WRITER

Fade to black. The audience sits silent and frozen. Then suddenly the man behind me asks, “What!? What just happened?” and then turns to his companion and wakes him up. My neighbor voiced a uniform thought among the audience. The Fountain, though beautifully acted, left me and my companions lost in a dark theatre. There were basically three sections to the film, which can most easily be described as story lines.

Ironically, I did not come close to understanding any of the three ‘stories’ until I read them in the synopsis provided by the filmmakers on the website for the film. As movie-goers, this should worry you. Generally, having to go the film’s website to simply understand a third of the film cannot be a good sign.

My neighbor’s question—“what?”—still plagues me. The message of this film is not clear by any means and this is an issue. Without an abundance of plot-driven action or dialogue, there should be something for the audience to consider on their way home. The philosopher in of each of us might find something in this movie to ponder, but it is more likely you’ll simply go home haunted by Hugh Jackman’s incredible, raw, and violent performance of a challenging emotion: grief.

As a friend who accompanied me to the movie pointed out, Jackman’s grief is clumsily tossed into the film to create what I think must have been the means of delivering the message. (If this sentence proves illusive to grasp, then I have replicated the sensations we felt watching The Fountain.) What that message or messages might have been, I will never know, because as sad as it is to say, in the two hours I sat in that theatre, I cried, hid my face, cringed, never laughed, and learned very little.

There are bizarrely violent and grotesque scenes, which add nothing meaningful to the film, juxtaposed with moments of surreal and wonderful beauty that were equally disruptive. Adding to the confusion is the nebulousness of the timelines of the drama: Is it fantasy or historical drama?

While I am not suggesting that films must always be servants of a genre, in this film, a moment of clarity would have provided the audience at least a starting point for understanding. How are we, the slightly educated masses, supposed to glean anything from a film that is completely unintelligible?

Ultimately, the arching story line about death, rebirth, destruction and creation is intriguing, but not fully realized, and one man’s grief obliterates all big picture ideas that it tried to introduce. Jackman, Weisz, and their supporting actors performed flawlessly and honestly but were swallowed by a surreal wasteland of murky ideas, leaving the audience, myself included, feeling raw and somehow empty.