The Fall

Filmmaker Tarsem Singh spent his own considerable fortune to create The Fall. Based on a Bulgarian film, a young girl in a hospital (her arm having broken while picking oranges) forms an unexpected friendship with a wounded stuntman (whose fall from a train trestle caused him to break both of his legs). On the day they meet, Roy tells Alexandria that he will tell her a great story, set in India, when she returns to visit the next day. What follows is an extraordinary journey of visual splendor and heartrending significance.

Understanding the stylization of certain aspects of the film is key to fully enjoying it. Most viewers can appreciate the decision to limit the color palette for the 1920s sequences while saturating the story of the Masked Bandit. It speaks directly to The Wizard of Oz – and in fact, the films are very similar. In each, a young girl uses the figures she knows as faces in an imagined story that parallels her life. But it’s easy to take color for granted in contemporary cinema, so it’s up to Tarsem’s exceptional creativity and courage to pull out all the stops for his magical world. The editorial craft of manipulating dozens of exquisite locations without the use of a green screen is its own magic, seamless in creating a dreamlike realm that grows more beautiful at every turn and consistent within its own reality.

I have friends who were unable to appreciate the story sequences because of what they called “bad acting.” I tell them they are mistaken, that the performances in the fantasy are heightened – stylized – so that we never forget we are in the imagination of a six year old girl. It’s impossible to deny the effectiveness of Tarsem’s leading young lady, Catinca Untaru. Her genuine performance is what drives the film; we fall in love with her and come to want Roy’s epic as much as she does. It is through her imagination and the familiar elements of her world that the fantastical story within The Fall is told. So when Roy tells her of the Indian, she envisions a scene in India, making no effort to accommodate the squaw hidden in a wigwam. Unfamiliar with Roy’s use of Native American terminology, and expecting a tale set in the East, she interprets the story as best she can. It’s this subtle touch that contributes to making the visual story uniquely hers.

There are critics who have condemned the film, proposing that an affection for it condones the manipulation of children for selfish purposes. I can’t speak for the process between director and actress, and I won’t scorn Roy’s influence over Alexandria. The “strange pair” have a need for the story they spin. Their needs differ at times, but they exist nonetheless. On the contrary, my sole qualm with the film lies with Nurse Evelyn. While I believe she was intended as a substitute maternal figure, I never saw her in a positive light. When she betrays Alexandria, it is Catinca’s depiction of heartbreak that sells it, nothing less.

I write my review now because The Fall is a film of note – regardless of its release date. It took four years for the film to find David Fincher and Spike Jonze, whose willingness to support the film helped get it to theaters at all. Luckily we the people have DVDs – high quality DVDs and televisions – that come close to recapturing the magic of a movie theater. If any of The Fall’s considerable magic is lost on your first viewing, consider sitting closer, and imagining the grandeur of it on a big screen. If you find yourself soaring like I did, you’ll know the biggest fall is coming back to earth after the movie is over.