Movie review: “The Fall”
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.
Solid performances, complex theme help ‘The Fall’ stand tall
The magic of storytelling forms the bond between a depressed man and a precocious child in the disturbing and bizarrely beautiful adult fairy tale “The Fall.”
Set in a Los Angeles hospital in 1915, the film centers on Alexandria (untrained newcomer Catinca Untaru), 5, an Eastern European immigrant recovering after breaking her arm working in an orange grove. Otherwise healthy, the curious child spends her days roaming the hospital.
While trying to deliver a note to her favorite nurse, Evelyn (Justine Waddell), Alexandria meets Roy Walker (Chickasha native Lee Pace), an early-day movie stuntman convalescing after breaking his back in a fall.
The fall took place during a stunt on a silent Western and may have been as much a suicide attempt as an accident. Roy has been depressed since his girlfriend left him for the film’s leading man (Daniel Caltagirone).
Roy regales Alexandria with an elaborate yarn of love and revenge based on the Western he was working on, his personal heartbreak and classic epic archetypes.
His engaging story follows the masked Black Bandit (mostly Pace), an Indian warrior (Jeetu Verma), an escaped slave (Marcus Wesley), an Italian explosives expert (Robin Smith), a dreadlocked mystic (Julian Bleach) and naturalist Charles Darwin (Leo Bill) as they embark on a worldwide quest to take vengeance on the wicked Gov. Odious (Caltagirone again).
The tale casts orderlies, patients and other people at the hospital in the various roles, and Roy keeps the colorful epic open to Alexandria’s whims. Nurse Evelyn appears as Odious’ fiancee, and Alexandria takes on the role of the Black Bandit’s long-lost daughter.
But Roy’s fairy tale isn’t just a kindly effort to entertain a restless child. He uses it to manipulate her into gathering morphine tablets for another suicide attempt. Alexandria is unaware of her pal’s ulterior motive; she only knows he will tell more of the story if she delivers the pills.
As the tall tale unfolds, the line between reality and fantasy becomes increasingly blurred, and Roy’s fable reflects his darkening mental landscape.
Writer-director Tarsem Singh, known for music videos such as R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion” and the 2000 film “The Cell,” based “The Fall” on the 1981 Bulgarian film “Yo Ho Ho.”
Making “The Fall” took 11 years of location scouting and four years of filming in 18 countries, and it showcases Singh’s singular visual style while bringing to mind the art of M.C. Escher, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali. One scary animated sequence resembles the work of the Quay Brothers.
Dressed in ornate costumes, the fantasy heroes traverse stark steppes, unforgiving desert and opulent palaces presented in hypersaturated colors.
Singh’s film is sometimes confusing and fractured, but strong performances, unusual visuals and the story’s resonance make “The Fall” worth taking.
-BAM
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