It’s somewhat ironic to do a retrospective on a film as fixated on the inevitable passage of time, and people’s response to it, as Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain. While the characters that Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz play are acting largely in response to and the denial of death, the overall themes of the film treat death itself as simply another part of life. Death is the one event that all people will experience, with varying levels of forewarning for each of us.

The Fountain presents its themes through its three overarching plotlines, stretching over a thousand years. Jackman portrays Tomás the conquistador, in 1500 A.D. Spain, enlisted by Queen Isabella, played by Weisz, to find the Tree of Life, the biblical fountain of youth. In the present, Tom (Jackman) is a neuroscientist searching to find a cure for his wife Izzi's (Weisz) brain tumor. And in the distant future, Tommy (Jackman) is hurdling through space towards a nebula, while being visited by visions of Izzi.

The main reason so many are worried about death is because for each person their own death is the end of their concept of time. We can dream of the future (Tommy’s biosphere rocketing through space), remember the past (Tomás adventuring through the jungle), but we’re always brought right back to the present by simply looking around us (Tom, in the lab).