The Fall

The Fall

See it. I urge you all.This is one of those rare visual jewels of a movie that boils down to simple story telling. Roy Walker A stunt double for the early flickers of 1915 befriends an Romanian immigrant girl stuck in the same hospital by luring her into an epic yarn. An epic yarn that oddly parallels his own heartbreak and loss of hope.

The cinematography is astounding.

Apparently the director of photography Colin Watkinson has been working on this gem for the last 10 years...gathering images, sketching and so forth. He is paired with director Tarsem Singh of the Cell. While the plot of his first flick may have wavered (and his choice of lead actress is questionable) you cannot deny that Singh creates astounding and memorable visuals.

This movie weaves in the plot and soul that the Cell lacked. And we see this epic yarn Roy Walker weaves as only a little girl can imagine it. Full of color, contrast and scenery on a truly grand scale. (mostly shot on location in this film covers Eygpt, Bali, the Czech Republic, South Africa, India...just to name a few of the 18+ countries...) And it uses natural lighting for much of the film...diffused sunlight in the hospital, the glare of the sun in the deserts. This is a film that will make you notice just how much studio lighting most other films utilize...

All in the mind of a little girl. Roy includes an Indian among his tale's group of bandits...a throwback to the Western he recently filmed. But in our little girl's mind we see the Indian of another color...dots not feathers...because her association with Indians is with India and her friend who gave her a toy elephant...despite Roy referencing a squaw and a tent. She instead sees a sari clad beauty and elaborately mosaicked doorway. Darwin carries around his beetles in a box largely reminiscent of the one our little listener always has on hand and gets his ideas from a monkey. The soldiers of the enemy don apparel that mirrors the bulky apron and head wear worn by X-ray technician...a leap not hard to make for a frightened child alone in a hospital. She sees the story the way the storytelling cannot even imagine, though at times you wonder if Roy can see past his own agenda and lack of hope.

One part, though visually interesting...a pain, drug and coma induced fantasy sequence...feels out of place with the rest of the film's imagery. Mostly as a result of the animation style which is not used anywhere else in the film. That, and the sequence looks lifted directly from an eerily similar nightmarish medical hallucination in Taymor's Frida...

The Fall...placed somewhere on the shelf near Mirrormask, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and the Princess Bride...this is not one to be missed...