"The Fall" (2008) - Movie Review

If not for anything else “The Fall” should be watched for its rich vegetation of fantasy. Tarsem Singh the director of the film in his first feature film the spectacularly overlooked “The Cell” was an exhibition of vivid and visceral nightmares. In this it is the colours of a child and a grown man with pain and purpose. “The Fall” is not a thriller like “The Cell” rather it is a tale of two people trying to tease each other with their story telling and form a friendship.

A bridge with a steam engine and something is lifted from the water body under it. A horse drenched and this picture is shot in monochrome. That will be the only extensive concentrated photography for the reality part of the film. The rest of the luxurious paintings of frames will happen in the imagination of the stuntman Roy (Lee Pace) or the little girl Alexandria (Catinca Untaru) in the same hospital. I use “or” because despite Roy narrating the story to her, it is never said whose images are those. In fact “and” depicts it right as both begin to mingle their stories and events around the hospital into this adventure.

Now having said it is a visual spectacle, the film as such has wafer thin script in terms of drama or plot. While it develops this relationship between the girl and the man devastated by his lost love, it is all a tool to stage this parade of dreamy sequences. Unique would find it tough to encompass as a word for this presentation which forms out of the narration. Never before we have seen deserts like this, may be we have but not the splashes of bright colours too perfect for reality or for that case fantasy. If we get a correct lens for our dreams, the best fantastical pieces, then this would be it.

Singh with cinematography by Colin Watkinson sometimes trumps his own creation scene by scene and keeps on surprising us. To move his time in the dreadful mundane hospital and the hidden agenda of getting the morphine pills, Roy invites Alexandria to his story of five legends. These five have a common enemy Governor Odius and they travel the real places set in the land of swimming elephants, butterfly shaped islands, palace in the middle of lake, blue city and natural sceneries captured in artificial settings of excellence in creativity are some of the few places Tarsem takes us in. What the story takes through soon gets lost in these mesmerizing, murky and moody skies and costumes.

We have seen a kid’s locked mind liberate into an escape from reality in “Pan’s Labyrinth” which is visually appealing in its own way. The missing part in this picture will be the element of emotions. And let me not overlook the fact of the true calling of emotions in last confrontation of Alexandria with Roy but immersed in these visuals, we lose ourselves to the possibility of realism in the hospital. Roy a young man popping pills over a lady love seems out of place and in a way unsuitable for the heavy connection the film beckons.

Sometimes the poetry of the film in its art of reproducing images from our sleeps blankets the requirements of a story. It can shade that essential part but beyond those colours, there needs to be substance. “The Fall” has it but it does not have the mass it could have had. The little cute girl played by Catinca is the winner in acting department. First she does not act and she clearly communicates with the actor Lee Pace. And that helps the story as the strange gap between these two characters is the human element of this film. Secondly it charms the innocence out of her in a carefree atmosphere. There is never a moment where things are made up or melodramatic with a nice kid in place.

When I saw “The Cell”, it was the most unusual film I have ever seen during that period. I was waiting for this immaculate illusionary creator for his second venture and the only thing I regret of this is that I was not able to see it over the big screen. It clearly fulfills its destiny only when it is viewed on how it supposed to be seen. Despite my dissatisfaction with the emotional part of the film, it is by far the greatest visual film I have seen so far. Sometimes the most extraordinary thing in a film becomes the great reason to see it hiding its small misses. In “The Fall”, there are dragging misses but it should not stop any one from viewing this art at its pinnacle of imagination.