His ensemble for the film includes the famed Kronos Quartet (two violins, viola, and cello), the Scottish rock band Mogwai, and nine vocalists in a makeshift choir. On basic levels, Mansell's choices for how he constructed his score for The Fountain make perfect sense --there is no impression that he was wandering hopelessly here-- but if you don't subscribe to the one-dimensional, abstract repetitions of that approach, then the score can offer you no insight or enjoyment. The score is built on cyclical rhythms and two motifs. The rhythmic movement of the entire score, often carried by the drums and low ranges of an electric guitar (or bass), set a steady pace that never deviates. Its performances are sometimes accentuated, more forceful in volume, but never does the rhythm evolve into anything more intelligent than a dutiful tool of procession. For the concept of reincarnation, featuring a rhythm that rolls through each time and place without variation makes sense, though it will undoubtedly get on your nerves after a while. The two motifs are stark and unforgiving. The first is a four-note guitar movement to accentuate each bar of the underlying rhythm, though it does stand alone in a few places. It's hard to tell if it has any significant meaning outside of the rhythm. The other motif is essentially the "main theme," a three-note progression that also repeats endlessly throughout the score. Existing for the upper ranges of the ensemble, whether on violin or keyboard, this theme seems basically appropriate given that the film has three layers to its story. But you never hear the theme evolve or gain a greater meaning; you're always expecting a second verse, but one never comes. With these rhythms and themes usually churning in a sparse fashion, the score restrains them heavily so that its intellectually minimalistic atmosphere is preserved.

At times, the rock band provides grinding, mindless underscore, as in "Holy Dread!" and at other times, as in "The Last Man," the quartet barely registers with its underdeveloped meanderings. Individually, the quartet offers some of the more listenable cues, such as the more harmonically contemplative "Xibalba." The choir makes no significant contribution to the score outside of the high range dramatics at the end of "Death is the Road to Awe." The male voices are often mixed so badly into the score that they lack any texture and come across as synthetic. The rock band is usually combined with the quartet, though the band's much broader bass elements dominate cues such as "Finish It" and "Death is the Road to Awe." In the end, a cue like "Tree of Life" is a twisted, drum-pounding attempt at "coolness" that you would expect to hear in the equally impressionistic world of Sin City. Here, the themes are so underdeveloped and the rhythms are so annoyingly persistent that The Fountain is not only a distracting element in the film itself, but a potentially major irritant on album. It's easy to hear why Mansell's score draws attention to itself --the kind of attention that a score needs come the time for award nominations-- but the same qualities that make The Fountain unique also threaten to make it, like Gustavo Santaolalla's Babel, unlistenable. Despite its enticing construct, the score for The Fountain is as one-dimensional as the characters in the film, leaving it as a monumentally wasted opportunity for truly intellectual musical connections. With little in the way of complexity to win your heart, The Fountain must rely on its atmosphere to gain your interest, and Mansell's grating repetitions will only accomplish that for a very few select listeners. If the speakers in the lobby of eternal reincarnation are belching out this music, then death is the road to awe and insanity.  **   @Amazon.com: CD or Download