Magical Fall Unleashes the Power of Words

It is 1915, and a little immigrant girl named Alexandria (Catinca Untaru) is wandering around a Los Angeles hospital trying to pass the time. The five-year-old broke her arm at the shoulder after suffering a brutal fall in the California citrus fields and she’s now stuck roaming the halls making friends with staff members like Nurse Evelyn (Justine Waddell) looking for something to engage her creatively fertile mind.

Justine Waddell in Roadside Attractions' The Fall

What she finds is bed-ridden silent movie stuntman Roy Walker (Lee Pace). Left without the use of his legs after a tragic accident involving a horse, a moving locomotive and a death-defying plunge from the side of a bridge, all hope for a bright future seems lost for the young man. Not only are his legs broken beyond repair, his heart, too, has suffered major damage, his actress girlfriend running off with his film’s leading man Sinclair (Daniel Caltagirone) even as he sits immovably wasting away in the infirmary.

It is under this cloud of depression that Roy makes friends with Alexandria, using the pretext of a fabulously fantastical adventure story set in the desert wilds of India to persuade her to steal for him a vile of morphine so he can secretly commit suicide. But things do not go as planned, the sheer power of his story coupled with her vivid imagination maybe enough to ease both their suffering and spark an adventure neither one anticipates.

It’s been eight years since acclaimed music video and commercial director Tarsem made his debut with the Jennifer Lopez thriller The Cell. While that film fared far better at the box office then anyone had predicted, Hollywood was not keen to finance the filmmaker’s ambitious and daring follow-up project The Fall. It wasn’t seen as being commercial enough, too weird and far too esoteric for the easily digestible corporate mindset permeating the major studios in this modern age.

Pity, because if Sony, Paramount, Warner Bros, Universal or 20^th Century Fox had taken a risk what they would have ended up with is one of the most visually spellbinding and emotionally captivating features of the year. Much like Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 Oscar-winning gothic fairy tale Pan’s Labyrinth this movie is an audaciously daring stunner with far more on its mind then its description can hint at. Simply put, the picture is a triumph, and I would guess as far as the director is concerned there can be no better vindication then that.

Granted, the fact that Tarsem shot the film over a period of years in-between making television commercials and music videos unfortunately can’t help but show. There is a herky-jerky quality to the momentum that’s a little distracting, everything moving in uncomforting fits and starts. Also, for as grandiose as the themes inside the tale become they never reach that heartbreakingly rapturous crescendo as the ones found in del Toro’s instantly classic epic, the final moments unable to make the final leap to brilliant timelessness.

Be that as it may, this is still one mightily magnificent motion picture. Very rarely has the power of storytelling been showcased so wondrously on celluloid. Words aren’t stiff little immovable objects littering white pieces of paper, they are in fact living breathing entities that expand, grow, move, change and evolve each time they’re used. Imagination makes them breathe, each person who reads or hears them finding something new and distinctly one of a kind as they use their own point of view to give them metaphoric life.

More, even with the interrupted shooting schedule from a strictly technical standpoint The Fall is truly outstanding. Colin Watkinson’s cinematography, whether prowling the narrowly claustrophobic hallways of the hospital or opening up into the lushly sunlit-drenched vistas of India, is astonishing, while Ged Clarke’s eye-popping production design is some of the best I’ll probably see this year. Best of all is Academy Award-winner Eiko Ishioka’s (Bram Stoker’s Dracula) amazing costumes, each one of them so distinct, so unique, so completely thrilling and alive, they literally pop right off the screen.

Tarsem weaves all this technical precision with ease, coupling it with a pair of outstanding performance by character actor Pace (recently stealing scenes in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day) and newcomer Untaru to craft something absolutely marvelous. As labor of loves go, this is one case where all that energy and passion can not only be felt by the audience but it can feed them, too. One watches the movie greedily wanting more, eager to see what the director has up his sleeve next, anxious to experience each of the plot’s subtly exciting nuances. 

Walking away, my heart felt alive and energized in a way that only great cinema can accomplish, and even if The Fall isn’t perfect the end result is still so magic I personally can’t wait to see it again. As recommendation go, I can’t think of a better one to leave things on than that.

Film Rating: êêê1/2  (out of 4)

- reprinted courtesy of the SGN in Seattle

Additional Links:

-  2008 SIFF Blog by Sara Michelle Fetters
-  2008 Seattle International Film Festival Home Page
-  The Fall Theatrical Trailer