posted
I didn't know what to expect when I went to see this film, and tried to stay away from trailers and articles so I could get the full experience in one sitting. And I must admit, I think I need a second sitting to fully understand everything that happened.
I won't give away any spoilers yet, but I thought that the film was very good. Very symmetric, both visually and thematically. It reminded me of Solaris in some ways, with the slow-moving space formations and eerie music.
Has anyone else seen this yet?
[ November 27, 2006, 05:34 PM: Message edited by: The White Whale ]
Posts: 1711 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
I think I would have liked it more if it had been longer, actually. I sort of thought they didn't take enough time to explore the hugeness of the ideas in the film.
Having said that, Aranofsky deserves major kudos for trying to pull of something so ambitious, even if *I* think (and who am I, really?) he fell a little short.
The imagery was so beautiful. You could slap a frame on so many of those images and hang it on your wall.
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posted
I will say that it was beautiful to look at. I was willing to accept everything, including the shiny glass spaceship...until that ending. What was that all about? Am I dense? Am I not in an existential zone or something? I left thinking "That was so bizarre."
Thing is, I didn't expect it to be any less bizarre. I knew it was Aronofsky and I went for the Hugh Jackman goodness. At least there was plenty of that. Posts: 6415 | Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
The more I read about it, the more I want to see it. It isn't playing here, so if I don't see it while I'm away this weekend I'll probably wait and rent it on DVD rather than trying to catch it somewhere else within the next few weeks.
I've seen some comparisons to 2001, which only increases my desire to see it.
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I really liked a few of the points it brought up, in particular the basic life-view of Jackman vs Weis, which I find very applicable in society today.
The imagery was definately fantastic, and some of the melding of storylines I thought was quite interesting and well done.
At times it's too jerky for my taste, and some of what Jackman was doing in the bubble scenes kinda confused me, but I guess that's just a matter of how do you portray something akin to bhuddist meditation/afterlife on film.
my fun description of the movie (at least I thought it was fun) was: "What Dreams May Come" meets zen meets Mayan mythology meets medieval christian mythology meets a spraypaint painting that I bought off a street artist in Venice Beach.
Posts: 1038 | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
I actualy watched it AGAIN the day after I watched it the first time, and boy did it help.
Now that I knew what was going on, I was able to start processing everything right from the begining, and not spend 40 minutes trying to orient myself. All of the dialogue and images started to make sense.
I'm going to share what I thought happened, and let me know if anyone got something else out of it:
***SPOILERS***
There were three time lines, and in each, Jackman (as the conquistador, cancer researcher, and zen-dude) devoted his life to finding ways to let Weis (as the Queen Elizabeth, Izzy, and the Tree) live forever. He loved her so much that he sacrificed actually living with her in all three of the timelines.
In the first timeline (Spain), Queen Elizabeth wanted to live forever with her Conquistador. So she sent him on a quest to find the Tree of Life. He failed, just barely, and managed to life forever himself (I'm not totally sure about this part) by drinking the sap of the Tree of Life. However, he was unable to put on the ring because he had not succeeded in getting Queen Elizabeth to also live forever.
In the second time line, Tommy devoted his life to curing Izzy's cancer, sacrificing the time he could have spent with her for time that he planned on later spending with her after he found the cure. He failed in this mission, just barely, but also inadvertently discovered a cure for death and aging.
So the Zen dude in the third time line is the same person (Tommy) who now does live forever. He continues his mission, however, to have his love live forever by planting the tree over her grave, and then taking the tree to Shebulba (spelling?), where the dying star and they will explode / die and therefore bloom and live forever.
The future time line was where Tommy realized that he should have spent his life living with Izzy, not living for her. He finally realized that when he died, he would be with his love forever, and that's why he was able to put on the ring.
So his mistake was trying so hard to live forever with his love that he never actually got to live with his love. He only lived his life for her, working hard and being away, only to have her die in all three time lines without him.
That seems to make sense to me. Did I miss something? What does everyone else think?
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posted
TWW, thanks. That makes a whole lotta more sense to me now that you lay it all out like that.
The way the endings were all meshed together was confusing to me. Did Tommy finish Izzy's book? Was what happened to the Conquistador what Tommy wrote as the final chapter of the book? Izzy's urging for him to 'finish it' I assumed meant the book. But was she instead referring to Tommy's life? "Finish it so that we can be together." Does that make sense?
posted
TWW, just for edification it's Xibalba (or at least something closer to that... those crazy Mayans and all their Xs =p )
good summary by the way, my only point of question/confusion is still whether or not your explanation of who the Zen version really is. your stated explanation makes some sense, but I don't think the movie really ever says. My initial take on it was that it wasn't necessarily even a physical existence so much as perhaps Hugh's internal spiritual journey, or perhaps his post-death/pre-reincarnation journey or the like. I just don't think that part was clearly defined, and it still kinda bugs me a little.
Also, about that bubble existence, should we be concerned that he is contributing to her early demise by eating her bark? and/or is he actually distancing himself from her there?
for the conquistador and modern lives we can clearly see how he's sacrificing the now for the potential of a future with her, but barring some time spent tatooing and doing some floating lotus gymnastics he's still spending all his time with her in the bubble (even if she is a tree) so is he still doing something wrong there?
Narnia: as for the book, my take was that he did finish it, and his ending was the part after the priest swung his flaming sword. But I definately think there was the intention of "finish it" referring to his life as well so that they could be together in the next life (whatever it may be).
I definately think the theme of not sacrificing the now is crucial, though it also needs to be tempered with some thought to the future. the thing that I took away from this movie that had the most value was the reaffirmation as stated in Izzy's eulogy that the real goal is to be at peace with yourself/the universe when you die, and that Izzy achieved that even though most of us don't manage to.
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posted
I thought the "finish it" referred to him writing the chapter that described her death, because she obviously couldn't write that chapter. But then agian, it would surely be more that one chapter as she turned into that tree and everything.
About him eating the bark, I thought that it was just how he managed to survive, eating one of the only things in that bubble with him. That really was never explained.
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posted
Grimace, I felt like the future/zen version of Tommy was the same Tommy from present day. In Izzy's explanation of Xibalba, the dead are reborn when they reach the star. I think that Tommy was taking the tree there in order for her to be reborn and live forever with him.
I tend to take things literally though, so I wouldn't be surprised if my interpretation is different than the one the director intended.
Posts: 6415 | Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
I got to see it on Saturday... WOW. LOVED it.
White Whale, I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head. I agree with your take.
I was confused for a few minutes, because I thought at first that Jackman and Weis' characters were already 500 years old in the modern/central timeline. It took me a little while to process what was going on too to have them show the death of the Conquistador and the death/resurrection of Tommy and the Tree at the same time. I loved the music during that part btw.
quote:good summary by the way, my only point of question/confusion is still whether or not your explanation of who the Zen version really is. your stated explanation makes some sense, but I don't think the movie really ever says. My initial take on it was that it wasn't necessarily even a physical existence so much as perhaps Hugh's internal spiritual journey, or perhaps his post-death/pre-reincarnation journey or the like. I just don't think that part was clearly defined, and it still kinda bugs me a little.
Also, about that bubble existence, should we be concerned that he is contributing to her early demise by eating her bark? and/or is he actually distancing himself from her there?
It was supposed to be him, as in it was Tommy over 500 years old taking the Tree of Life/Izzy to the star. It was a symbol though of what you just said. As for the eating of the bark, it is the Tree of Life... it's the only thing he can eat to sustain him on such a long journey.
I'm intriged about that barrier ship he was in... what a neat idea. Just imagine the technology that exists on Earth to build something like that.
What I don't get is when the high priest with the flaming sword sees the Conquistador for a second as Tommy in the ship. The First Father. Did the death/resurrection of Tommy and the Tree create a new world?
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posted
I saw it last night. I was disappointed. It wasn't a bad movie, but it fell far below its potential, IMO. I do agreew with The White Whale's take on it, but I don't necessarily agree with the implied philosophy behind the movie, assuming that was the message of it.
To me, the movie was much more a visual poem than a full fledged story. There is a lot of ambiguity, so plenty of room for different interpretations. I thought what happens to the Conquistador after drinking from the tree of life was just bizzare. I can probably ponder it out for hours and come up with some meaning, but I don't have any real faith that the movie intends whatever meaning I ultimately would put on those events, and in my opinion that is a shortcoming of the movie.
In short, I was hoping for something newer and more profound, and what I got was a fortune cookie philosophy with a deathist spin. Granted it was a really pretty cookie.
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Seems like the writers got their metaphor of the tree of life from Genesis and did not notice the additional mention in Revelation 22:2, where it says that the leaves of the tree were "for the healing of the nations." So the tree of life not only gives renewal of life, it also could have healed Izzy of her cancer. But the writers were probably going in a different direction, philosophically. Sounds like an interesting movie. I'll have to see it.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Seems like the writers got their metaphor of the tree of life from Genesis and did not notice the additional mention in Revelation 22:2, where it says that the leaves of the tree were "for the healing of the nations." So the tree of life not only gives renewal of life, it also could have healed Izzy of her cancer. But the writers were probably going in a different direction, philosophically. Sounds like an interesting movie. I'll have to see it.
There was very little literalism at all in at least two of the three stories in the movie, let alone strict adherence to scripture. In fact there was only one small area where the "tree" referred to was specifically the tree mentioned in Genesis, and that was in a fictional story within the movie's own story (i.e. it was written by one of the characters in the movie). That tree certainly wouldn't have cured Izzy's cancer, unless by "cured" you mean "killed in one of the most novel ways in film".
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KarlEd, that's really how I felt about it. Your use of the 'fortune cookie' analogy is dead on. Once others started to talk about their interpretations, it made a bit more sense, but there was still a lot of unexplained 'deep' stuff that looked really pretty.
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