The Fall (Tarsem Singh, 2006)

[Antoine Doinel]

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.

And a cup of Jodorowsky.

[yoshimori]

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.

And a cup of Jodorowsky.

Not much Jodorowsky, iyam. One 30 second scene, shot in Bali with the mud-caked dancers, is straight out of Baraka. The overall form is Munchausen - a little girl and an adventure tale - but I don't feel any Matrix or Eyes Wide Shut.

I've seen the thing twice now and quite recommend it to anyone who's even faintly interested by the trailer ... if the April release print makes it out of LA. An amazing feat of filmmaking. I'm especially fascinated by what the director and the editors did with the little girl (for whom English is clearly a second language). She's great! And the halting rhythm of the dialogue scenes between her and the male lead is quite daring.

[Antoine Doinel]

HD trailer.

[kaujot]

What's the song that's playing in the trailer? I'm having a brain fart and can't remember.

[yoshimori]

Beethoven 7, second movement. It's used in the opening and closing of the film to nice effect.

[a.khan]

I just came back from a screening. It's brilliant. The script is very clever; and because it's self-referential, the film avoids falling into the trap of being cutesy or melodramatic. A definite step up for Tarsem, who not only provides some stunning visuals and camera movements, but he is really skillful at generating emotional resonance and some truly twisted subtext which bubbles under what is, essentially, a children's fable. There's also a stop-motion animation sequence in the film -- pure fucking genius. For me, "The Fall" is everything that "Pan's Labyrinth" promised to be.

[Barmy]

One of the best films of the last few years. Much better than any of Gilliam's frenetically depressing recent work. Must be seen on a big screen in 35mm projection.

Edit: just watched the trailer and it is terrible. The awesomeness of the child's performance doesn't come across at all. And the trailer makes the film appear far more disjointed than it actually is. Also, of course, it doesn't even come close to conveying the spectacularity of the imagery.

[Galen Young]

Saw this last night and am very sorry to say I was disappointed. The little girl's performance was the only honest and authentic thing in the film that really held my attention. (considering her line readings were well-nigh indecipherable!)

The beautiful surreal landscapes oddly didn't pop as well as they did in the The Cell -- probably because the story the guy spins for the little girl is just plain cornball with a capital c. The humor felt awkward and forced and the allusions to The Wizard of Oz were groan-inducing. Even the Eiko Ishioka costumes couldn't cover the fact that the 'wacky' mythical characters who wore them were really just a bunch of "nonentities." Silly self-indulgence came to mind many times while sweating this out to the end...phew!

There's also a stop-motion animation sequence in the film -- pure fucking genius.

I'll admit that was nice, but it kinda felt like an outtake from Frida. My favorite bit was --

Spoiler

the final montage of vintage silent films -- combined with that music was awesome! Too bad the film did not live up to intensity of that sequence...

Hopefully this won't prevent Tarsem from making another feature film, as I look forward to whatever he does next.

[Grand Illusion]

The comparisons made to Pan's Labyrinth will be inevitable, but this did a much better job of tying The Story into the real world. Every plot point in The Story is immediately identifiable as to how it will affect the psyche of the characters. This is made possible by a very solid performance by the lead male, and the little girl is fantastic.

Tarsem's tone is spot on. Many funny moments, but when it needs to, the film takes itself just seriously enough. Suicide is all over this film, and, as someone that has witnessed its devastation, the film handles the topic with maturity and clarity.

The script and mise-en-scene make this a film as much about themes and characters as it is about details. The mis-/re-interpretations of the story are executed flawlessly with no talking down the viewer. This is a very nuanced film, but it is NOT confusing. I have no idea where people are getting that from.

As will be talked about, the cinematography was great, but it was also very daring. The film constantly breaks the "rule of thirds" to exhibit a vastness that only a few painters have captured. The camera moves are also innovative.

I'd continue (with lots of comments about tiny details), but nobody deserves to have this film spoiled. Discovery is half the journey, and in that, this film is brilliant.

[wattsup32]

what is the "rule of thirds?"

I'll chime in to say that this is one of the best films to come out in the past 10 years. i don't like to post spoilers even when i warn people, so i'll save plot stuff for later. suffice it to say, it is stunning in ways unimaginable and carries it's whimsy through without ever sacrificing the gravity of the subject matter, but also without pomp or pretense.

simply lovely to see.

[eez28]

what is the "rule of thirds?"

Here

[kaujot]

According to an e-mail I received from Roadside Attractions, Lionsgate should be handling the DVD release, though the lady who responded to me wasn't sure if "the filmmakers have signed the deal or not."

[JonDambacher]

Tarsem Singh's magical film "The Fall" is quite enjoyable.
A child's imagination runs wild in this adventure of colorful lands, people, and the simple art of storytelling.

The movie takes you on several different journeys as well as leaving the main through line open for interpretation. Visually this was a post production high-five. Knowing the post production manager on this film, he's told me it was not only an extreme time commitment but also quite rewarding when the film was finally brought to larger theater venues.

Tarsem had difficulty getting the world to see this when it was only released in a handful of theaters back in 2006. Since, with the help of David Fincher and Spike Jonze, the film has been praised with a wider, more formal release.

Only after a second viewing did I learn that this is a "remake" of a Bulgarian film from 1981 called "Yo-ho-ho." IMDB has a synopsis and also sites this film as being the "original." However, The Fall was a cinematic fun-house. The last two minutes of the film certainly left me feeling enthralled and anxious to keep this story kicking around in my head for the next few days.

-- Jon Dambacher

[chaddoli]

Maybe I just don't like fantasy but this left me pretty cold. I was actually pretty into the 'real-life' part of the film, and appreciated its parallels to the fantasy half, but there was no sense of urgency in the fantasy, nothing at stake. And I wasn't so dazzled by the imagery that I could ignore this.

[mfunk9786]

Coming to DVD with some pretty impressive extras on September 9th.

[filmnoir1]

I saw this last Sunday with very little knowledge of the film except that it was from the director of The Cell. The movie may not be for everyone but it is a brillant example of a filmmaker who knows how to use motion and paint with images. From the beautifully photographed black and white credits to the magical moment when the little girl sees a prototypical example of movies through the use of sunlight being filtered through a keyhole and projected onto the wall behind her, Tarsem acknowledges the power of cinema to enchant us, move us, and challenge us intellectually. Tarsem also does not rely on the easy nature of cgi to craft his vision, and instead uses good old fashioned filmmaking techniques which makes this film even more impressive and epic in scope.
This film also celebrates the early days of filmmaking when making movies was like a magical and dangerous process. Moreover Tarsem's vision of the world is one wherein all peoples of all colors and all nationalities can be enlisted to fight the evils of a mysterious tyrant that oftentimes sounds alot like the United States. In my opinion this is one of the best releases of the year so far.

[jsteffe]

The other great influence on Tarsem's work is Sergei Paradjanov. That's pretty much self-evident from his music videos for R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" and Deep Forest's "Sweet Lullaby," as well as some of the outtake footage on the DVD for THE CELL. I haven't seen THE FALL yet, so I can't comment on whether he once again pays homage to the Master.

[LQ]

I excitedly revisited this on dvd today, and though it parades in all its finery most magnificently on the big screen, I was just as thrilled with it as I was when I left the theater starry-eyed months ago. It's definitely one of my favorite movies of all time. It is such as sumptuous paean to the human imagination and thus, as the exhilarating ending demonstrated, to cinema itself. I can understand how one could not be as taken with The Fall as I; you're either drawn in to Tarsem's world or not, but I for one am memorized.

[manicsounds]

Watched this last night and was very impressed. I'm just shocked at the $2.5 million gross theatrically around the world.... Maybe it's just me, but don't people want to see movies like this if they had a chance, as in if it opened in theaters nearby? The worldwide distribution was/is terrible.

I'm just glad Sony didn't skimp on extras, 2 commentaries, deleted scenes, and 1 hour's worth of behind-the-scenes.

I will be showing this for my English school in November.

[Barmy]

Actually this was one of the most successful specialty releases of 2008 in the US. It played for months in Manhattan (most of that time on a single screen).

[Lino]

Already watched this movie 3 times since I've bought the DVD. Catinca Untaro is gold. It's like watching Gilliam's Munchausen but on a much deeper level.

[denti alligator]

I don't know what to make of this film.

First of all, the dream sequence is a direct play on the Quay's Street of Crocodiles. The Cell also contained a Quay homage, so that's nice. I felt this one was a bit too close to the Quays, though, to really be called "homage." Stealing from the masters.

There are scenes between Roy and the little girl that capture the absurdity and banality of adult-children conversations like nothing I've ever seen in a film before. It has to be unscripted. It feels totally improvised and is utterly brilliant. Catinca Untaro is beyond excellent.

Then there are the visuals, which are breathtaking. The Blu-ray disc I rented makes them look fantastic. Tarsem far exceeds anything in The Cell. For Untaro and these beautiful sets/exterior shots alone the film is worth seeing.

The narrative leaves me in two minds. On the one hand it's a sophisticated story about storytelling, one that plays with metalepses (storytellers/audience crossing the threshold into the story world) in a way that doesn't feel flippant or gimmicky. However, I'm still not sure it works. Something didn't come together for me, and much of the "fairy tale" seemed pretty lame.

Edit: Definitely better than both Pan's Labyrinth and the new Gilliams (title escapes me right now), which it superficially resembles.

[jesus the mexican boi]

Thanks Denti for putting much of what I was thinking about this film into words. I don't think it's entirely successful either, but if failures are this beautiful, I'll watch them gladly. I kept thinking of books like Italo Calvino's "If On A Winter's Night, A Traveler" and of the kind of thing Jodorowsky would have done in the early 70s with an unlimited budget.

The girl is untouchable, but I liked Lee Pace quite a bit. At times he felt like a lost Wilson brother, stuck somewhere between sober Luke and affable Owen.

So many incredible images in the film, but the underwater elephant shots linger like an impossible dream. An incredible visual poem on storytelling and the imagination, of the fabulous and the mundane, and even a paean to the birth of cinema as a new form of narrative.

Remarkable film.

[bigP]

For anyone interested in how The Fall came to be, the casting and story of Catinca Untaru and a description of some of the most incredible shots in the movie, there's a very informative interview between Roger Ebert and Tarsem on Ebert's website, here.

I found the film both magical and incredibly grounded, somewhere between Cinema Paradiso, Pan's Labyrinth and Northfork, yet in a world utterly belonging to Tarsem and Catinca. Not many director's throw caution and their entire lively-hood to the wind in order to realise a dream that is entirely personal with no regard for their future. Like the film or not, Tarsem has to be commended for his commitment and the boldness to follow a dream.

[Antoine Doinel]

A blog dedicated to the locations of the film. If you haven't yet seen the film, you may not want to go here to save some of the surprises (I quickly scrolled through it, but I'm saving the experience for when I finally see it).