This has been the first time in years that I’ve seen a movie with nothing but the poster to go on, I never even saw the trailer. It’s really hard to see a movie these days without being tainted by any sort of baggage. I saw the poster. It didn’t make any sense, but I’m a fan of both David Fincher and Spike Jonze. Tarsem’s only other film was the completely insane The Cell1, a film I’ve been meaning to revisit for the past few years, but I have yet to make the time.
Tarsem is known for being really artsy. He often recreates or pays homage to paintings in his work, he’ll spend 17 years working on a film (which he did for The Fall), and he doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but it’s always really pretty anyway.
The Fall is about a crippled stunt man (Lee Pace) in a hospital in 1920’s LA. A cute little girl that barely knows English (Cantinca Untaru, who really didn’t know any English) befriends him. He starts telling her an epic story during her daily visits to him, but he’s really just using her so she’ll do stuff for him. It’s very much like The Princess Bride2 in that the story frequently gets interrupted by the storyteller or listener. In fact, the interactions between the stunt man and the girl were filmed first and all improvised. The chemistry they have is the best I’ve seen in a long time. They actually dictated a lot of what happens in the story by their improvisation.
The story world scenes are spectacular. They really are epic. Tarsem shot this movie all over the world. Really. He’d been scouting locations for nearly two decades3. There’s so many amazing places in the world I didn’t know about, but thankfully Tarsem exposes many of them in this film. Palaces, deserts, tiny islands in the middle of the sea (and I do mean tiny, like only 20 wide), ancient ruins and an M.C. Escher drawing come to life.
I’ll admit it, I don’t get the movie4, but it still haunts me nearly a week after seeing it. It doesn’t make any sense to me. You’ve got an elephant swimming, Charles Darwin wearing a pimp coat, birds coming out of a dude’s mouth, evil black guards that sound like snarling dogs and this amazing scene. I love really great slow motion and this film really gets it right. The whole intro to the film is a long slow motion black and white sequence that’s just brilliant.
The film is rated R, but really should have been rated PG-13. There is nothing in here that warrants an R rating, I guess it might be because of the violence, but it’s no worse than Lord of the Rings or Star Wars. There is a scene that comes to mind that could be found offensive in this post 911 world, and I’m assuming that’s why they got the R rating. If it is the reason, then I’m offended.
If you like breathtaking photography then you’ll enjoy the movie no matter how weird it gets. If you like knowing what’s going on then buy a ticket to The Fall and sneak in to What Happens in Vegas.
1. I understand that The Cell was pretty much only made because The Matrix was such a hit and the studio heads finally “understood” what Tarsem was trying to do.
2. Turns out The Fall is actually a remake of an old Bulgarian movie called “Yo Ho Ho“, but who’s ever seen or even heard of that movie?
3. He was just waiting for the right little girl to come along, and when she did he knew he had to make it right away because little girls grow up so fast.
4. I think it’s a tribute to the pioneers of stunt work in the early silent films. Seriously.
