In his first major movie, Pi, Darren Aronofsky used a cramped New York City conurbation as the backdrop to the even more cramped mind of the troubled genius protagonist. Then the brilliant Requiem for a Dream saw an expansion out to a wider cast of characters, more open spaces in Brooklyn and, in a few unpleasant scenes late in the movie, the American South. Six years on show that Aronofsky is leaving New York far behind in The Fountain.

Or is he? I seem to remember hearing about a revival of interest in hip New York circles about the “ethnobotanicals” of Central and South America mentioned early on in the movie. How exactly these jungle compounds, Amerindian culture, the Book of Genesis, pyramids and modern medicine weave together with film-making, myth, legend and mysticism must be necessarily complicated; and therefore The Fountain is an epic work of extreme ambition, mystery and darkness.

The movie stars a sullen Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz, who is an intense, vulnerable and magnetic anchor for a story that spends much of the time weaving together ethereal threads–the kind that seem to confuse and bother people like this reviewer writing on the-reviewer.net.

Some people find fault with Aronofsky’s ambition and intensity. But that’s what he does, and this movie is one that his fans will find more to like about than not. Here’s an assessment by Weisz as quoted by wired.com:

‘It asks the most adult question of all: How do we relate to our own mortality? But it’s still messing with you on so many levels.’