"The Fall" is a film by director Tarsem Singh, a labor of love, that was mostly financed by Tarsem himself in order to maintain creative control. The film stars Lee Pace as Roy, a Hollywood stuntman who is temporarily paralyzed after an accident on set, and Catinca Untaru as Alexandria, a young immigrant girl who broke her arm working in an orange grove. The story focuses on the relationship between Alexandria and Roy, who befriend each other in the hospital as Roy spins an epic fantasy which the audience sees through Alexandria's imagination.
There are several nuances to the production that make it unique in the contemporary pop culture climate of 3-D Michael Bay and family-friendly CGI. While filming the hospital scenes, Tarsem and Pace convinced the cast and crew (including young Untaru) that he was actually a parapalegic. As Roy tells the story, Alexandria steps in with questions and comments, which are Untaru's genuine reactions to the lines Pace is delivering. First, Tarsem filmed the scenes at the hospital, letting Untaru interject her own thoughts about the fantasy. Instead of rigidly sticking to his script, Tarsem accepts Untaru's whimsical interjections, and incorporates them into the script. Allowing a child who has never acted before dictate his film shows great adaptivity and confidence in his own work, and it certainly pays off as we feel the innocence and imagination she brings to the film.
Another nuance to the production is the locations, none of which are computer animated! The fantasy sequences are full of locations so beautiful, it is hard to believe they all really exist, but they do. The film was shot in 20 different countries, using the most ornate and striking natural and manmade structures you could possibly imagine.
The Fall is an important film because you will never see a film like this ever again. The cost of production, moving from one country to the next over the course of four years, was more than any studio would be willing to front. And the main actors (including Untaru who seems to not have had a strong understanding of a separation between the real world and the world of the film) were active in developing the story, all of which helps set The Fall apart from most big budget films.
I recently decided to watch The Fall with the sound off, and playing my own music to it (a'la Dark Side of the Rainbow). The plot is relatively simple, and is easy to be conveyed without dialogue, allowing the viewer to mediate on the beautiful imagery, almost recreating a experience of watching early silent expressionist films like "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" or "Metropolis". Watching the film with a different soundtrack, making it like a silent film, gives a heightened sense to an already intense visual experience.
The beautiful scenery and cartoon-like behavior in the fantasy are attributed to Alexandria's imagination. We know this by certain hints Tarsem places in the film. Like "The Wizard of Oz" all of the characters Alexandria visualizes in the fantasy, are also characters in the real world. One of the heroes of the fantasy is an "Indian" (it takes place in the 1920's, so it's a broader term), whom Roy says lives in a wigwam, making it evident that he means a Native American. Alexandria, however, knows an Asian Indian man she works with in the fields, and he fills the role of the Indian in the fantasy. His "wigwam" is a beautiful and ornate Asian palace. Little nuances like this make the fantasy fleshed because we know where it is all coming from.
One of the criticisms I have heard of the film is that the fantasy sequences look like nothing more than talking fashion models. Which is true, the costumes, the lighting and the scenery look like a fashion spread designed by Bjork. And some of the acting is questionable, but Tarsem is aware of this doll-like acting, and uses it along with more naturalistic acting when in the real world. The fantasy is Alexandria's vision, and she is so young she doesn't yet understand the complex dramatics of an adult, she understands the simplicity of cartoons. This isn't the Wizard of Oz or Alice in Wonderland where a character ends up in this place. It is known that the fantasy is just a fantasy, and what we are seeing is just a story.
Even with the simplicity of the myth Roy tells, the film thoroughly holds up in the storyline about Roy and Alexandria in the hospital. Their relationship is very human, it is endearing, yet tarnished and most importantly it is unique. A man with a little girl in his bed and the curtains drawn could have been a very different, much creepier film. But their relationship feels so genuine in its simplicity and innocence. Until Roy begins to use Alexandria, pressuring her to steal morphine. It is unclear wether or not Roy always had this motive in befriending her but it doesn't matter. We see him lying to her and want to suppress the fact that he is using her because what she sees is so beautiful. But we cannot deny that, while he is a great storyteller and seems endearing, Roy is using a child to feed his drug addiction.
One problem that I can see with the film is that there are basically only two characters, Roy and Alexandria. Most of the other characters serve a fundamental purpose in the real world (they are nurses, delivery men, insurance reps for the injuries), but are only the focal point of a few scenes. In the fantasy all of the characters are extentions of Roy and Alexandria, the two creators of the world. But those two characters are very rich and genuine. Roy, the man Alexandria looks up to, is deeply flawed, and takes advantage of her. But because of the perspective of the film we feel like we are seeing things for the first time through Alexandria's youthful eyes. She explores optical illusions and questions reality in subtle ways that even she might not understand.
It seems like these days every film that has potential to be great, ends up falling back on common, formulaic crutches. And what is more formulaic than the "love interest"? Protagonist and the "love interest" have a Tony and Maria moment, there's some basic conflict that they must overcome, and you have an easy subplot. The Fall has a love interest, but in this fantasy, after the love interest has proclaimed her love for the protagonist, then betrayed him, then professed her love again, the protagonist tosses her aside, in favor of his fatherly love for Alexandria. Of course this is all coming from the heartbroken Roy whose fiancee has left him for the leading man. Still, in The Fall, romance is little more than a distraction from the real goal. Which is appropriate, since that's how they are so often used in film.
When all is said and done, it is an upbeat film. But it is not afraid to journey to dark places. Roy loses his girlfriend making him rely on addiction and Alexandria is a poor immigrant girl who cannot go to school and must spend her days working in an orange grove. Though these aspects of their characters are not explored in great depth, they are very present in the real world. And that darkness is mirrored in the fantasy. Feeling shame and regret about using Alexandria, Roy ends the fantasy by handing victory to the villain because he is an unworthy hero. As he surrenders to a hypothetical beating, he simultaneously drinks from a flask and bawls at Alexandria's bedside after his thieving has come to light. The film is so innocent that it had to have a happy ending, but the darkness of reality is so present that they must first drag your emotions through the mud.
All of this is presented in the budding era of silent film. I am a sucker for self-referencial art, but only if it is done well and it has a statment to make. The film begins with a black and white sequence of Roy's on set accident. The scene silently rolls on in slow motion to no noise other than Beethoven. "The Fall" concludes with Roy, Alexandria and other patients at the hospital watching the film, a short Lone Ranger type western, followed by a montage of different silent film clips. During the montage, a voice over from Alexandria speaks about all of these new films she is seeing. The montage is funny slapstick and stunts, but it is a stark contrast to the lush and colorful world she had imagined in the fantasy. I can't help but feel like it is a requiem for endless childhood imagination, which in a modern day is tapered with endless media saturation.
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