The Fall (2006)
Genre: Fantasy
Format: Blu-ray
Director: Tarsem
The Fall bears many similarities with Tarsem's first feature film, The Cell. Both present a "story within a story", one that takes place in the real world and another that takes place in an alternate reality. Both also feature some of the most imaginative scenes ever seen in cinematic history. Unfortunately, both cannot be categorized as a great movie. Between the two, only The Cell belongs in that category.
How can a movie so beautiful becomes such a snore-fest?
The Fall takes place at a Los Angeles hospital in the early 20th century. A curious young girl with a broken arm, Alexandria, stumbles into an injured, completely bedridden stuntman, Roy, and a friendship begins to develop. Roy uses his charm to convince the girl to get some morphine for him by telling her a strange story about 5 men who are on a mission to destroy an evil tyrant who in the past committed to each of them some form of evil deed. The story takes place over numerous fantastical locations ranging from the sparsest of deserts to the busiest of cities. Wild and striking colors as well as shapes constantly fill up the screen whenever the storytelling is in session. As Roy's mental state becomes more and more fragile, the storyline becomes catastrophically fragmented but the little girl refuses to give in to Roy's pessimistic vision.
A grand entrance.
The problem with this movie is that it is mostly incoherent and vastly uninspired. Though I understand Tarsem's goal of telling an unconventional narrative, the fact that there is hardly anything interesting about the narrative itself is a major oversight. In real life, I doubt any little girl would be impressed by the sheer lack of real plot developments within the story told by Roy. The only clever storytelling happens at the beginning when Roy introduces the motivations behind each of the characters' plight. After that, it gets very boring very quickly. All we have in the end is just the visual grandeur of the fantasy sequences. They are beautiful to look at but for the most part, they fail to generate any real emotion.
A real hero would have been able to dodge those...
It is unfortunate that Tarsem's personal project ended up being a failure when his big, mainstream work was a total success. It is very apparent that even though Tarsem is a master at conjuring majestic visuals, he is a timid writer who requires stronger screenwriting partners than those he worked with on this film. Though I am glad to have seen some of the scenes found here, I do not wish to watch The Fall ever again.
RATING: 2 out of 5
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