The Fountain presents three different stories, set in three different time periods, each involving the same characters (played by Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz). It’s visually beautiful, but what I find so poignant about the story is the contrast between the characters’ love and the inexorable finiteness of their lives. In each story, he must save her by finding the literal or metaphorical Tree of Life.
The more powerful the emotion, the more powerful the desire to prolong it, and the deeper the tragedy when one inevitably cannot.
“Finish it.”
Without an end to life, would it still be beautiful? Is there beauty in the acceptance of fleeting, the resignation that it’s all we’ve got?