by Vinoo
Language : English
Director : Tarsem Singh
‘The Fall’ is a fantasy film and a visual treat. Roy Walker, a Stuntsman, is hospitalized with a serious injury he sustains while trying to impress his lover, with a dangerous stunt. At the hospital he meets Alexandria a little girl of five. She is recovering from a broken arm and is restless and gets accosted to the stranger and asks him to tell her a story. Roy starts narrating a story and Alexandria imagining it. The narrative is his, the images and the imagination hers. The story is that of five heroes : a slave named Otta Benga, an Italian explosives expert, Luigi, a fictional Charles Darwin and a monkey companion who is apparently the one who is responsible for Darwin’s multiple discoveries, the Indian, and a masked bandit, Blue Bandit. All of them have a common purpose and that is revenge against General Odious, who has committed some injustice to each one of the five men. The story is interrupted at regular intervals by the day to day events in the hospital.
In return for the story the stuntsman, Roy, gets petty favours from the Alexandria, like getting her to steal a bottle of Morphine. In course of time the story is nearing its tragic climax, seemingly matching with the tragic life of the narrator. The kid will have none of it and she has imagined herself and the narrator and everyone she sees around the hospital as characters in the story. The story is no longer just that of the narrator. Alexandria pleads for a happy ending like all of us do when we get into the character of a story and start empathizing with him or her. Brilliantly shot by Colin Watkinson. The colours and frames are simply superb and there is almost no use of special effects / computer graphics. One of the best fantasy films I have seen. The movie brought to mind Jostein Gaarder’s book ‘Sophie’s World’ for some reason, the film of which was at IFFK two or three years back.
Catinca Unctaru as the child artiste, Alexandria, is simply superb. Justine Wandell as Sister Evelyn and Lee Pace as Roy Walker and the rest of the cast do a very commendable job.
It was good to see good friend Prasanna R Coondapur aka Anna’s name as the credits rolled down.
Tarsem Singh’s earlier film is ‘The Cell’, probably the only movie starring Jennifer Lopez worth mentioning. He has also directed many commercials including Nike ‘Good versus Evil’ where soccer superstars take on the devils, Levi’s Burt Lancaster ‘The more you wash them the better they get’ ad that won the Grand Prix at Cannes, and numerous others for Vodafone, BMW, Reebok, Coke, Pepsi etc. Tarsem has also directed Deep Forest’s video ‘Sweet lullaby’ and REM’s ‘Losing my Religion’ videos as well.
Also just watched Vittoria De Sica’s “Terminal Station’ (Criterion collection) which I didn’t like all that much. Watched Murali in ‘Neythukaaran’ , ‘Chamayam’ and ‘Aadharam’. Malayalam film industry lost one of the best actor’s the country has known in Murali. Rajan P Dev (actor known for his role in the play ‘Kaattukuthira’ and many many movies), Lohitha Das (Director and one of the best Scriptwriter’s the Malayalam film industry has seen), music maestros Gangubhai Hangal and D K Pattammal. So many geniuses in their craft are no more, all passing away in the last one month.
Useless trivia : Tarsem Singh Dhabdwar saw a book, ‘Guide to film schools in America’, which was to change the course of his life. He would go on to change “studying something your father loved and you hated”. He has directed many commercials and he has put in all his savings to make ‘The Fall’ since he could not find a Producer. It is the same story everywhere. The film was shot over four year in 28 countries. There are some amazing shots in Jodhpur as also the desert shots during the initial story of Alexander the great.
Catinca Unctaru, the five-year old Romanian kid, apparently thought Lee Pace was a paraplegic in real life. Tarsem Singh let it be so as to get a more realistic performance from her. Catinca Unctaru did not speak any English and she was taught as they went along. Her dialogue delivery adds so much to the film it is almost a character in the film.
Been tripping on the Screenwriting software celtx. Check it out : www.celtx.com
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