The Josh Chop: Absolutely visually stunning at first glance, Director Tarsem Singh pulled out every visual card he had when creating The Fall. Singh takes you on an adventure a la The Princess Bride with some slow and choppy parts that left me wanting more. While very imaginative, The Fall is based upon an 80’s Bulgarian film, Yo Ho Ho. Shot over four years in 28 countries, Singh’s budget must have been REAL!
Roy Walker (Pace) is an injured stuntman who lies in a hospital bed depressed and alone. A young girl, Alexandria (Untaru) befriends him and wants more out of Roy than he’s willing to give. Due to his mental state, and the pain he deals with daily, Roy decides to trick this little girl into getting things for him since he cannot walk or stand. Roy has Alexandria do favors (not those kind) like touching his toe to see if he has feeling in it again, in exchange for him telling her a wild story he’s making up.
As Roy tells his story, we switch to seeing what Alexandria is imagining. The characters take form, and the characters become people we’ve seen in the real world, like an ice delivery man. Roy continues his story of a group of five men stranded on an island who all have one thing in common . . .to kill their enemy, Governor Odious. The five men include an Indian, the ex-slave, an explosion expert, Charles Darwin (yes, that Darwin) and the masked bandit. All have a reason to kill their enemy, although a few have reasons that don’t really make sense to go as far as wanting to kill someone.
As the story evolves, Roy constantly stops in the middle of scenes to ask Alexandria to do favors for him. Alexandria is annoyed by Roy “Always stopping at the same part when it’s always beautiful” and so was I. At least in The Princess Bride, the story only stops to remind you that it’s not real. Here, it really is annoying, because it takes you out of the fairy tale and into real life that isn’t very nice. Since Roy is in pain and depressed and constantly seeking a reprieve, he stops the story to have Alexandria do his bidding. While I understand that this moves the story along in the real world, it’s quite annoying, because it feels like you are just getting into a meaty part of the fantasy story.
Pace does a good job in the film, but a lot of his work is done in voice over as he tells the story. Apparently Peter Jackson was so impressed by his performance in The Fall that it made him cast Pace in The Hobbit films. Being familiar with Pace from TV’s “Pushing Daisies,” I haven’t seen him in a serious role like this before and was satisfied with what he gave to the film. I think Pace will be given more serious roles in the future, but I think he shines brighter in comedic roles.
When watching the film, you may notice that the acting is incredible from Untaru. It’s almost as if she is reacting to situations the same way a four year old girl would in real life. Which leads me to believe that Singh didn’t really let Untaru in on the fact that it’s all fake and they were making a movie. Smart move on Singh’s part, he was able to get some great reactions to scenes by the little actress. On the other hand, you can tell Untaru is genuinely distressed. That’s a little messed up, because she’s so young. Her apparent terror is seen later in the film, when Roy is in danger in the fantasy world.
The film moves along and shows some really beautiful places that many of us will never see in real life. Some places are beautiful natural landscapes, while others are architecturally stunning. Shots like the one “Butterfly Reef” in Fiji and “Agra Fort” in India are just a couple of sensational filming locations. If you watch The Fall, do yourself a favor and watch it on Blu-ray for full effect.
Towards the end, I felt like they just decided to get all artsy and turned things over to Tim Burton to direct some scenes. These scenes are odd and feel out of place for this type of film. I’m left agape at why they chose to add stop animation and CGI into a film full of naturally vibrant scenes. It seems out of place, especially since everything else in the film is so real. From the animals to the costumes (which are superb!) there isn’t any alteration to the film, except a few key scenes as mentioned.
All in all The Fall is visually pleasing. You will certainly enjoy how creative the costumes are and how beautiful each filming location is. You may feel like things aren’t explained even though they seem important. You will grow to enjoy each character in the fantasy world until you are pulled back into Roy’s daily life. Alexandria is easy to fall in love with, with her cute personality and missing teeth. I was left feeling a bit disappointed by the fact that they seemed to wrap things up in the last 20 minutes of the film. I personally hate that and wonder if they just ran out of money or what? Watching The film is visually fun, but the story may have you yawning from time to time. Check it out for yourself.
