THE FALL
US, 2006, 118 minutes, Colour.
Lee Pace, Justine Waddell, Catinca.
Directed by Tarsem.
Writer-director Tarsem was born and educated in India and then moved to the US in his 20s. He directed The Cell with Jennifer Lopez and has directed a range of music videos. Clearly, he is a film-maker who is fascinated with striking and colourful (extremely colourful) images. This means that, above all, The Fall is a visual and aural experience (with many musical styles as background).
Looking at the final credits, most will be amazed (and wondering about the air fares, let alone the budget) at the many, many locations used, from the US and India to South America and Fiji, Bali and the Pacific and Indian Oceans. They are exotic but have been enhanced (and re-created with buildings and sets) by computergraphic effects.
It seems best in a review of The Fall to mention this first because this is where the main impact occurs. There is a plot, several plots that audiences may well find difficult to keep in focus and follow. Thoughts of Terry Gilliam come to mind with Baron Munchhausen or Time Bandits… This is especially true of the opening sequence on a railway bridge over a river and the lifting of a horse to the top. In fact, this is an adaptation of a Bulgarian film.
And the plot? Los Angeles in the early 20th century. A hospital. A small girl, Alexandria (played by a Romanian, Catinca) has lost her parents, employed for seasonal fruit-picking, in a fire started by bigots. She visits an actor, stuntman, who has been injured but is also pining his lost love. The two begin to talk. He tells a story about Alexander the Great (with vivid re-enactment in a bright orange desert) which Alexandria does not really like. He then begins an epic story which is visualised for us, from Alexandria’s point of view not his, because she begins to include him in the story as a gallant bandit, the nurse as an oriental princess, and her parents as well. Eventually, she is in the story with the bandit.
There are four characters stranded on a tropical sand bar, all the victims of a Count Odious. There is an Italian explosives expert, a slave, an Indian who has lost his wife and there is Charles Darwin. Each of their background stories is visualised, quite elaborately. So are their adventures and the pursuit by Odious. The bandit joins them and, eventually, Alexandria.
The film keeps coming back to the hospital where the storyteller, Roy (an unexciting Lee Pace) wants to die. On the wards is Nurse Evelyn who becomes the Princess (Justine Waddell is less than exciting). The wards and the X Ray rooms are a touch eerie as is life in the hospital.
Finally, everyone sits watching films (silent films) and, especially the children in the hospital, enjoying them.
Exotically esoteric.
1.The film as a visual experience? Audio experience? Emotions, the imagination?
2.The director, his Indian background, work in the United States, music video director? The influence on the visual and aural style of the film?
3.The huge range of locations, their use, the effect, computer graphics to create new worlds within these locations?
4.The background of film, film-making in the US, silent films, the cameras, stunts, their screenings, the injuries? The audience, children? Westerns?
5.Los Angeles at the beginning of the 20th century, the hospital, the grounds, the wards? The staff and their uniforms? The x-ray room seeming sinister? Injuries, treatment, illnesses?
6.Alexandria, the injury to her arm, the story of the fire, the flashbacks, her parents, the enemies, the racial hatreds, the destruction, the crops? The hospital? Her life there? The other children?
7.The opening, the scene at the bridge, the dive, the fall and the film’s title? The horse being lifted? The irony of its being cut from the film?
8.Roy, in hospital, in his ward, the other patients there, especially the anxious man wanting the doctor? Alexandria and her visits, talking with Roy, their friendship? The significance of Nurse Evelyn? In the stories, for Roy? His stories, his talking about Indians and squaws and Alexandria mentioning India? The relationship of the narrative and her seeing a different picture? The comment about audiences and using their imagination despite what is offered to them in word and image?
9.The story of Alexander the Great, the settings, the desert, vast and orange, his horse, the men and the lack of water, the messenger, bringing some water, Alexander pouring it out so that nobody would have the advantage? Alexandria not liking the story?
10.Roy talking, Alexandria incorporating him and Evelyn as characters in the story? Her parents? The counterpoint of imagination and reality?
11.Roy’s narrative, the four prisoners, the Italian, the Indian, Charles Darwin, the slave? The natives swimming to the isolated island, the message? Their wanting to escape? Prisoners of Count Odious? The strong visualising of each story in location: the Italian and the explosions, the slave and his experience, Darwin and his expeditions, the Indian and his wife and her death, the interventions of Odious? The stories developing as Roy told them and Alexandria imagined them?
12.The settings, exotic, the introduction of the bandit, Roy as the bandit, the young woman, Evelyn as the woman?
13.Roy and his health, his dreams, medication? Alexandria getting the pills for him? His wanting to die? The pills as sugar and placebos?
14.The fatalistic direction of the story, the battles, the deaths of each of the individuals? Alexandria’s sadness?
15.The bandit and Evelyn, the intervention of Odious, love, the bandit and his reaction, shooting the girl? Her explaining that it was a test of his love?
16.Odious himself, his attendants, the pool, the confrontation?
17.The stuntman in the hospital, the visits, discussions with Roy?
18.The doctors, the nurses, the x-ray room?
19.Roy, living, love, friendship?
20.The audience watching the movies, the children and their delight?
