The Fall (Tarsem Singh, 2006)

[Lino]

Tarsem "The Cell" Singh's new movie. It premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and Twitch has a review.

I'm looking forward to seeing this because I actually enjoyed watching The Cell, albeit its shortcomings. Glad to see the man hasn't lost his visual flair.

[Antoine Doinel]

I was looking forward to this as well, but the review pretty much confirms what I feared: a great looking, but empty picture. The Cell was interesting visually but the story was utter crap. Tarsem just hasn't transitioned well into feature length films.

[John Cope]

Maybe not, but he's sure dependable!

[Lino]

I was looking forward to this as well, but the review pretty much confirms what I feared: a great looking, but empty picture.

But paradoxically, that's one of his strengths as a filmmaker. And no, I'm not kidding you. And no, I don't support it either. In fact, one of the extras on the Cell DVD is called "Style over content" or something like that and I agree. That film really works as a purely visual entertainment because besides that, you get the usual serial killer story and yes, he gets caught in the end. But if you're into dream states or sequences, then baby, it doesn't get any better than The Cell.

As I said, very much looking forward to seeing this because he seemed to go all out with The Fall.

[Fletch F. Fletch]

But if you're into dream states or sequences, then baby, it doesn't get any better than The Cell

Er, unless you like David Lynch, Luis Bunuel, etc. Having said that, I did enjoy The Cell on a visual level even though it feels like Tarsem ripped off his images from countless other sources kinda like with the "Losing My Religion" video...

[zedz]

Also, are we sure that the 'auteur' we're responding to in The Cell isn't Eiko Ishioka? I actually see a strong through-line from Mishima to The Cell to Bjork''s Cocoon video.

[Antoine Doinel]

Dave Poland's review from his TIFF blog:

Another film that apparently took forever to make was Tarsem's The Fall. The film is within aesthetic inches of being truly great. And I almost can't explain why.

The film is set in early Hollywood. A young girl from a family of fruit pickers, father deceased, is in bed with a dramatically set broken arm. In another ward, a movie stuntman who tried to ride a horse off of a bridge into the river below to impress his girlfriend... who apparently had just started an affair with the lead of the movie. Now he's both injured and suicidal.

It takes a while to figure out what's going on, but the little girl and the sad hunk meet and he - trying to seduce her into getting him enough morphine to commit suicide - starts to tell her an epic tale of heroes and villains. And the journey of these characters - all walking icons... the beautiful black man, the beautiful Indian, the beautiful masked man, the beautiful mystic, and the Ollie-Reed-esque jolly, rough-hewn munitions expert - is where Tarsem shines.

The film is Wizard of Oz by way of the bastard child of Terry Gilliam and Zalman King. But Tarsem has them all beat visually. Apparently, he used his commercial travels as an opportunity to shoot the film over the years, country by country, stunning location by location. And the images are singular. (Mel Gibson would be a little pissed about the beautiful Mayan sequence, if it wasn't so clear that this film isn't likely to provide competition to the images in Apocalypto in theatrical release anytime this year.)

Tarsem's storytelling is a little weak. And the real Achilles Heel is the acting. Lee Pace, who is not very good (albeit very handsome) as Dick Hickock in Infamous, is also pretty stiff here in the leading role as The Man. He's not embarrassing, but he doesn't show much range... much like a Zalman King male lead. And while Justine Waddell is amazing to look at here, again, she is not much of an actress. And while beauty is wonderful, a touch of humanity in the performances would have made a world of difference.

The real find of the film is the amazing Catinca Untaru as The Girl who is told the tale. She plays an immigrant with a funky accent and the greatest oddball line readings you may ever see any child give. I have no idea what is real about her readings and what is acting, but she is charming and funny and altogether winning in this role. She's only a song away from matching Judy Garland's Dorothy and a kinky variation on Sarah Polley's career launching turn in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.

The story The Girl is being told becomes thematic as the film proceeds. The Girl projects herself into it. And eventually, so does The Man. And this conceit is actually quite interesting, especially as it evolves into a third act of twists.

I wish I could say this was a great movie, but it just misses. It does make one drool for a Tarsem movie with a good script that he would stick to. His work here can be, at times, all about the visual and lose itself, but this is not commercial/music video stuff. There is much more in play here. An upgrade in the couple of sexy leads would really make this a solid, very watchable film. And a little less confusion in the narrative might turn it, with the new actors, into a really excellent film. It is actually pretty close. But those things that fail it, fail it utterly and there is no getting over it (or cutting away from it).

I would think that one more editing pass - maybe 5 to 10 minutes cut and some massaging - and this is a potential passionate cult film. The visuals... oh those visuals... stunning. And anyone casting a kids movie of any kind should be fighting to see Ms. Untaru. Rewrite for her if you have to. She is a real find... a character actress in a pint-sized (albeit chubby) body with big expressive eyes. She's the kind of spice that could turn a dumb studio kids movie into something much more interesting in just a few scenes.

And Tarsem... find a genre script that really works and start shooting. Give us one. And then go back to chasing your elusive personal dream.

Watching this film got me thinking about how directors like Tarsem and Gilliam and Fincher and Tony Kaye and a few others are too distinctive to make movies like one of the Potter films without bending it too much to their voice. That's a great thing... and a curse. Because the money for their challenging films is hard to come by even if you haven't been tagged a pain in the ass (deservedly or not). But man, can these guys flex! Let's hope Hollywood can find a place for them.

[Lino]

Go here for a review and some images from the film (beware of some spoilers) --

[Antoine Doinel]

The film is having trouble finding a distributor due to middling reviews and fears that the film will be impossible to market. The LA Times interviews the director and talks about the making of the film.

[yoshimori]

At last Friday's LA Film Fest screening, the festival director remarked that The Fall will be released in, uhhh, the fall. Maybe he was misinformed, and there was no mention of a distributor, but ...

Thought it was lots of fun, fwiw. The little girl, in contrast to that horror who spoiled Gilliam's Munchausen movie, was a delight, and the montage of stunts from silents, set to some of Beethoven 7, was thrilling.

[Lino]

Poster

Oh, and the movie is now being presented by David Fincher and Spike Jonze.

[Lino]

The Fall has just won Best Picture at the prestigious Sitges Film Festival.

Has it already opened in North America? This movie is taking an awful lot of time to come out anywhere.

[Matt]

Has it already opened in North America? This movie is taking an awful lot of time to come out anywhere.

It doesn't appear to have been picked up for distribution in North America yet. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

[Lino]

Very, very strange. This movie was definitely an expensive one to make, what it being shot in 26 countries around the world or something, so it strikes me as very odd that its backers aren't trying to put the movie out to the largest viewing audience possible.

I've just been to the imdb boards and apparently, the official site is going live next month, a mere year since it's been made and that Singh is expecting it to come out (at least in America, I think) by February next, a mere year and a half since its completion...

Very, very strange. And I have a feeling that it will get a very limited distribution before it comes out on DVD. Maybe they're aiming it for the cult crowd or (and this may be the real reason behing all this delay) it's too much of an oddity and they're not quite sure of how to market it. Is Singh the new Gilliam?

[Lino]

Russian trailer and US release date.

[Antoine Doinel]

New trailer.

[a.khan]

Looks like Tarsem finally got Ebert to see it, because there's a quote from this ubiquitous critic in the trailer.

[miless]

It looks like a cross between Baron Munchausen and The Matrix (with a little bit of the orgy scene from Eyes Wide Shut... well, at least the masks).

[Antoine Doinel]

Looks like Tarsem finally got Ebert to see it, because there's a quote from this ubiquitous critic in the trailer.

I think Ebert saw it at TIFF.

The trailer has me sold, despite the middling reviews.

[Robotron]

But if you're into dream states or sequences, then baby, it doesn't get any better than The Cell

Er, unless you like David Lynch, Luis Bunuel, etc. Having said that, I did enjoy The Cell on a visual level even though it feels like Tarsem ripped off his images from countless other sources kinda like with the "Losing My Religion" video...

Bunuel hasn't made one film that approaches a dream state.

[miless]

Bunuel hasn't made one film that approaches a dream state.

Un Chien Andalou, L'Age d'Or, The Phantom of Liberty, Exterminating Angel and Discreet Charm do, for me... (and That Obscure Object of Desire, to a degree) but generally speaking his films are more gentle blurs on reality than all out 'mind-fucks'. But Buñuel is thrice the genius of Lynch (and Lynch is a thousand times Tarsem, at least judging from The Cell)

perhaps Jean Cocteau is a more apt example.

[Robotron]

Un Chien Andalou, L'Age d'Or, The Phantom of Liberty, Exterminating Angel and Discreet Charm do, for me... (and That Obscure Object of Desire, to a degree) but generally speaking his films are more gentle blurs on reality than all out 'mind-fucks'. But Buñuel is thrice the genius of Lynch (and Lynch is a thousand times Tarsem, at least judging from The Cell)

Bunuel's films are black comedies, absurdisms and social satires, but unreality itself is not in the same hemisphere as dreams. Herzog is proof enough of that.

[a.khan]

Looks like Tarsem finally got Ebert to see it, because there's a quote from this ubiquitous critic in the trailer.

I think Ebert saw it at TIFF.

Tarsem completed the film last year [2006], but his luck ran out when he took the picture to Toronto [film festival]. He especially wanted Roger Ebert, who'd been a fan of "The Cell," to see the picture. But the critic fell ill and couldn't cover the festival. The critics who did see the film were not kind.

[Nothing]

Hey, the director of The Cell adapting Camus, can't wait.

[ivuernis]

It looks like a cross between Baron Munchausen and The Matrix (with a little bit of the orgy scene from Eyes Wide Shut... well, at least the masks).

I think you can throw in a large dollop of Baraka into the mix also.