This! Is! Art!

There were two comic-book related movies in March. One of them was crap, another was not. Which do you think is which?

The Fountain, strictly speaking, isn't really a comic book movie. See, Darren Aronofsky had this wacky screenplay, and was having lots of trouble getting money for it, seeing as how bizarre and experimental it was. And so he went off and got an artist to turn it into a graphic novel, which was released a couple of years back. I'm guessing the costs involved were significantly lower, but I could be wrong. In the meantime he finally scrounged up enough money to make the damn film, and so here we have The Fountain.

And what a film it is. Leaping across time, space and narrative boundaries wilfully, it's a beauty to behold. Behind all the mumbo-jumbo and intentionally confusing yet brilliant editing, the simple themes of love and regret shine through brightly. It probably plays much better as a theatrical play, but with the amazing CGI that's available nowadays, Aronofsky can afford to immerse you in stunning visual environments.

Having all these amazing visuals would mean nothing if the two main characters were thin - and with a script containing all these Ideas, it'd be too easy for lesser actors to portray them as paper-thin characters who spout lines full of existential angst. Fortunately, in Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz (oh, the blatant nepotism! - she being Aronofsky's wife), Aronofsky's found two fabulous actors that anchor their multiple/single characters firmly in humanity and emotion.

I really have to watch it again to be sure, because it's simply too overwhelming the first time round, but for now, I have to say that I love this movie. Maybe I'm being pretentious, maybe not, but anything that's out of the ordinary and works well scores lots of points in my book.

The adaptation of Frank Miller's 300 is extraordinary as well, but in many other ways. Chief of which is the fact that it's basically a 30-minute short film stretched out to feature length by having two-thirds or more of its shots in slow motion. One cannot deny that the visuals look fantastic, but they're in service to a pathetic excuse for a script, and after a fight or two, everything starts looking exactly the same.

Actually, to be honest, with the heavy rock on the soundtrack, it looks like an incongruous music video, with semi-naked men leaping and thrusting all over the place in completely gratuitous slow motion. The completely-CGI-ed background thing worked perfectly for Sin City, but here, in the hands of someone who doesn't know what else to do besides having his actors pose and deliver stilted dialogue, it's just pointless decoration that doesn't bring add anything.

The end result is a pretty picture, but there's only that long before you get sick of staring at something pretty and vacuous. Two hours of that (which feels much longer) and hammy, over-the-top roaring ("This! Is! Sparta!") is enough to tire anyone out. This is something I don't understand - what justifies adapting a rather thin (albeit stunning) graphic novel, with under 100 pages (most of which contain huge two-page spreads), into a two-hour movie? I'm only grateful I saw it for free.