Written and directed by Tarsem Singh
Review by Laura Hawbaker
In a bleak desert basin, Alexander the Great pours the last of his army’s water supply into the sand. A chandelier, composed of human bodies, spins from a ceiling. An elephant buck swims across the sea to the exquisite allegretto of Beethoven’s 7th Symphony in A major. It can only be the glorious binge of whimsical, terrible moments that is a Tarsem Singh film. Overindulgent? Perhaps. But like Thanksgiving dinner, this is one visual gorging that hits the spot.
The heroine of “The Fall” is Alexandria (Catinca Untaru) a six-year old Romanian immigrant with a slippery handle on English who, after breaking her arm, befriends a fellow hospital patient, the bedridden Roy (Lee Pace). With long hours of convalescence to fill, Roy tells Alexandria an imaginative tale—a narrative like something out of a Kipling adventure, in which five rogues seek vengeance against an evil count. But Roy’s motives aren’t as innocent as they seem. He is freshly crippled, has lost his girl to another man, and is deeply suicidal. He uses his skills as a storyteller to exploit Alexandria’s youthful naiveté; she has the legs he doesn’t… legs that can walk across the hall to the consultant’s office, where the hospital keeps its bottles of morphine. Morphine he plans to kill himself with.
Tarsem (as the filmmaker prefers to be called) is an acclaimed commercial director known in the pop world for hemming REM’s groundbreaking “Losing My Religion” music video, as well as the Jennifer Lopez thriller “The Cell.” Unlike his other projects, “The Fall” is a true labor of love. Tarsem turned down high profile directing gigs like “Constantine” to devote time to the film. “The Fall” is attached to no studio, and Tarsem paid for it out of pocket. Given the fact he shipped his actors and crew to over two-dozen sumptuously exotic locations over four years… that adds up to one pricey pet project.
After earning bitterly divided reviews at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival, it took Tarsem two years to finally find American distribution for “The Fall,” and only then after he was able to tack on a pivotal first credit: “David Fincher and Spike Jonze present…” Without those two innovative auteurs’ names lending credence to the film, “The Fall” never would have made its way into American theaters.
This is a film about storytelling—or, more specifically, the interpretation of a story through a second set of eyes. We are treated to Roy’s fantasy through Alexandria’s viewfinder. When Roy describes the character of “the Indian,” he speaks of a squaw and a wigwam. Yet Alexandria’s only knowledge of Indians is her neighbor, a man from India. Thus, the “squaw” is draped in a sari and the wigwam is a Hindu temple. The story twists as both Roy improvises to hold Alexandria’s attention, and as Alexandria interrupts him to make changes. “Why does the bandit talk funny?” she asks. “Because he’s your father.” “No,” Alexandria says. “Make him talk normal. Make him talk like you.” Thus, the bandit is transformed, no longer a gap-toothed actor with a Romanian accent, but Lee Pace.
The camera follows Alexandria through the doldrums of the hospital halls as well. Few modern films have captured a child’s world with such vivid truth. Alexandria sees everything in bits and pieces, never putting the full puzzle together. Therefore, neither do we. We must put our minds to work, guessing at Roy’s back-story, and guessing if what we are seeing is true, or simply Alexandria’s interpretation of truth. Understandably, this doesn’t sit well with all audience members, and critics of the movie have derailed the plot, which can be scattered and superficial. Both the reality of the hospital and the fantasy of the fairy tale are not much more than a series of exquisite moments attached by thin threads. But then again, this is how a child perceives the world.
While the adorable Catinca Untaru, who spoke no English and learned her lines phonetically, steals a great many scenes, it is Lee Pace who is the hero here (both literally and figuratively). He delivers an impassioned performance, at times charismatic and desolated, and his interaction with Untaru is delightfully genuine. After production of “The Fall” wrapped, he found mainstream television fame in “Pushing Daisies.” Paired with his stellar performances in “Soldier’s Girl” and “Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day,” as well as his charm and looks, Pace is red-carpet ready: primo leading man material.
At the climax of “The Fall” Roy, having plunged to the deepest nadir of depression, allows his mental state to seep into Alexandria’s fairy tale, resulting in a torturous blood bath. “Why are you making everybody die?” Alexandria asks, tears shining down her face. “Please! Please don’t kill the bandit! Don’t let the bandit die!” Truth and fairy tale are intertwined; should Roy kill off his alter ego, he kills himself. And like all children, Alexandria only begs for a happy ending. But which world will win? The cynicism of harsh reality, or the hope of a child’s fantasy?
