Y Si, Yo Creo
47
Tommy bears no resemblance to a Christ-figure who undergoes a resurrection.
Instead, Tommy has to move from a sense of mission—that he must finish what
he has set out to do—to acceptance that the end of the journey through death is
the only ending that can be.
Tomas, as the above scene continues, asserts of Queen Isabella, “We are her
salvation. And through her command we shall live forever. I will not die! Not
here! Not now! Never!” His sentiment expands in the future setting of the film,
where he, traveling alone now with the Tree of Life/Izzi promises her, “You’ll
make it. I won’t let you die.” Tommy has had to eat of the bark of the tree to
extend his own life during their journey and whether by virtue of that alone or
that possibly the Tree is not truly immortal, the Tree of Life withers, near death,
as they travel toward Xibalba. Aronofsky describes this section of the film, with
Tommy traveling with the Tree toward Xibalba, “So we decided to create an
environment where Tom and the Tree of Life lived in a balance”
(www.seedmagazine.com). Interestingly and perhaps tellingly, it is not a balance
in which both can survive and thrive—it is an environment with a limited time
span, which belies the initial conception of the Tree of Life as both immortal
and a granter of immortality. In the broadest sense, stories of the World Tree and
other tales concerning the quest for immortality become limited by the mortality
of their creators. While they may serve as explanations for why humans are
mortal, or perhaps even as symbols of wishful-thinking in terms of the
possibility that out there lies a path to immortality, they cannot grant that which
they discuss. The Fountain considers physical immortality and concludes that it
is both impossible and something that would cost humans more than they would
gain. Aronofsky ponders, “The Tree of Life grows up, up, branches come out,
has leaves, the leaves fall down, they go back into the earth, come back up
through the tree, come on out, and there’s the leaves” (Capone). In the film, the
Tree of Life, with its origins in Izzi, is thus also a Tree of Death since it reflects
the fullness of human experience.
In all three settings of the film, Izzi remains a focal point for Tommy, both
because of his love for her and his drive to save her life. In the specific case of
Izzi’s novel about Tomas and Queen Isabella, in it, Tomas seeks the possibility
for an earthly eternity with Isabella, a wish fulfillment perhaps on behalf of
author Izzi, but a true quest on the part of Tommy. By forcing Tommy to finish
the story, Izzi moves him to a place where he must set aside his fantasy of
permanently cheating death to instead embrace the time they have shared and
the certainty of death. These themes are further confirmed once Tomas enters
the pyramid and meets its guardian, the Lord of Xibalba (Fernando Hernandez),
who tells him both, “First Father sacrificed himself for the tree of life. Enter and
join his fate” and then “Death is the road to awe.” Tommy’s sacrifice involves
overcoming his ego, the “I think” translation of his last name, to trust in Izzi’s
later repetition of the line that “death is the road to a we.”
Although Izzi provides the path of knowledge and enlightenment for
Tommy, she does not exist as a superhuman figure completely impervious to her