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| Tuesday, June 3, 2008 12:43 PM |
| On the Viewer - The Fall |
 by Fëanor |
I'm one of the few people who thinks The Cell is a really excellent movie. It's a visually stunning sci-fi/serial killer movie made in 2000 starring Jennifer Lopez and Vince Vaughn. It was directed by Tarsem Singh, who previously mainly did music videos, and who now goes by just the one name: Tarsem. When I saw that Tarsem had put out a new movie that looked just as visually stunning as The Cell, I knew I had to see it. Poppy decided she wanted to see it, too, so we checked it out together this past weekend.
The Fall (apparently a remake of a Bulgraian film from 1981 called Yo ho ho) opens with a series of eerie, dramatic, slow motion, black-and-white shots that, we slowly realize, are describing some kind of accident at a railroad bridge involving a horse. Next we find ourselves at a hospital just outside 1920s LA, where we meet a little girl named Alexandria who is recovering from a broken arm she received from a fall at the orange plantation where she works. She meets another patient named Roy, who turns out to be a stuntman who was injured in the opening accident. He begins telling her a fantastic revenge/adventure story, which explodes in Alexandria's imagination. The two of them together populate the story with all the people she knows, set it in breath-taking, impossible landscapes, and paint it in lush, blazing colors. But Roy has created the tale with a sad and terrible purpose in mind, and before he's done he may destroy them both.
As I'd hoped, the movie is visually incredible, but beyond that, it's also extremely imaginative, extremely well acted (Catinca Untaru, the little girl who plays Alexandria, is particularly amazing, and her interactions with Lee Pace, who plays Roy, feel utterly real and immediate), and extremely insightful and moving. The ultimate message is one of hope and love, but be warned, to get there, the movie takes some pretty brutal turns down some pretty dark and disturbing paths. While I was watching it, I felt like the end of the story-within-a-story was a little too brutal and dark, but in retrospect I think it's actually just about right. I wouldn't call the film a tear-jerker, but if you're susceptible to crying at movies, you probably will at this one.
My only complaint about the movie is that it engages in perhaps one or two slightly cliched plot twists, and gets a bit melodramatic at times. But overall, it's just a fantastic film, and I highly recommend it. |
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