Tarsem Singh's THE FALL! [boxed spoilers]

Cafe Society
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Thread subtitle: Movies you love so much you don’t want anyone else to see, because they might not like it, and because it hurts, emotionally, psychologically, almost physically (like a knot in the stomach or a lump in the throat) hurts to hear people tear it down.

Like Tarsem Singh’s The Fall. I freaking LOVE this movie, love love LOVE, and yeah, it’s painful, PAINFUL I tell you, to hear people with no taste or heart ragging on it, like the sad, sad people at Rotten Tomatoes, who have put it at 48% because they, to my mind, have no emotional core or imagination. I started reading some of the Rotten blurbs and almost got physically ill just scanning. How alien these “Rotten” people are to me! They may as well live on a completely different planet or in a different dimension. They certainly speak a language I don’t understand, and do not want to learn, lest I be infected by whatever’s wrong with them. I almost don’t even want to KNOW anyone who doesn’t walk out of this film completely, besottedly in love with it. And boy, don’t I know that that’s a really bad attitude to have.

It’s not even that I believe it’s a great film. I might when I see it a few more times (as I most certainly will), but would never try to convince others of that. It’s certainly not a movie that I know in my gut (not just believe) is an instant classic (like There Will Be Blood, which, though as much as I love it and was obsessed by it, I totally understand why it didn’t work for many people), and it’s not going to win or be nominated for any awards or anything (though Art Direction would certainly be well-deserved).

But something about it just HIT me in the exactly right spot, emotionally, that made me fall deeply deeply in love with it, even more the 2nd time I saw it. The first time was at a free screening, and then I paid to see it again with the bonus of the director being there for a Q&A after the film. Man, I practically wanted to bow down to him (what a nice, witty, unassuming guy he was too).

That “something about it” isn’t a mystery. There are lots of somethings (like, say, oh, the stunning visuals, cinematography and music) but I know exactly what the biggest something is, and her name is Alexandria, played by Catinca Untaru, a most amazing and wonderful little Romanian girl. I could see this movie a hundred times, a thousand times, just to bask in her presence, listen to her speak, see her beyond-adorable smile, cry tears with her, ache to give her a hug, go on adventures and adventures and adventures with her, laugh with her, fret for her, worry about her, cheer for her. With one viewing Alexandra became one my favorite movie characters ever (move over Daniel Plainview and Atticus Finch).

She’s just…I can’t even begin to do justice to her, just as the trailer doesn’t do justice to her. I can’t imagine how even the hardest hardened hearted person could fail to adore her to pieces, even if they hated the movie. She is really something very special, as is the (non)actress who plays her. The closest I can come to a comparison, and it isn’t really a fair comparison, is Victoire Thivisol in the heartrending film Ponette, which isn’t fair because the character of Ponette was a much more difficult role, but seeing Ponette inspired the director to look for a performance that would also be naturalistic and organic. Untaru isn’t an actress in the same way that Thivisol is (was, I guess, since she hasn’t acted for years), but the characters are both special.

I went into it not having seen any visuals beyond the poster, and not knowing anything about the story. I went because it was free, and because it was “Presented by” Spike Jonze and David Fincher, and because it was directed by the same guy who directed The Cell (which I liked, and which had stunning visuals, so I knew that that The Fall was probably going to look great), all of which was good enough for me so no need to hunt down a trailer or synopsis, so I don’t know if I should answer the question that some may be asking, “What’s it about?”

What follows in spoiler tags is a very simple outline of the basic plot (and it is a very simple movie, plot-wise). There are no real spoilers unless you want to be like me and go into it knowing nothing. Btw, if you’re such a person, don’t watch the whole trailer, because there’s a massive spoiler in it, that shocked the hell out of me when I saw the trailer after having seen the film. It’s more an audio spoiler than a visual, so you might be ok if you turn the sound down halfway through. But even if you do watch the trailer, if it looks at all interesting to you, only watch it once to get a sense of the visual aspect. The visuals include things never before seen on film and while it’s best to see them for the first time on the big screen, if you’re going to spoil it for yourself, at least, don’t watch it over and over to get “used” to these astonishing sights. After you’ve seen it, then you can (and should) watch the trailer over and over again, to relive the wonder.

The “present day” part of the film is set in 1915. Alexandra is an immigrant child who’s broken her arm while picking oranges. While in hospital, she meets a stuntman who’s been injured while doing a stunt for the movies. They become friends and he tells her stories, she rapt with fascination. The stunning visuals you see in the trailer and stills are from the storytelling parts of the film.

I don’t want to say any more because that would be spoiling it. I’m not sure what else to say about this movie though. It stole my heart away. Poof, gone, off into the desert or a butterfly reef somewhere. I just loved it so much. I know others won’t. People walked out of the free screening, and look at the RT score. It’s hard to take, I don’t understand it, but of course I accept it because that’s the way it is. I just hope that the people who will love it go see it in the theater, and the people who won’t will go see something else.

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I have movies like this - I’m sure most people do. I’ve heard nothing but really terrible reviews for “The Fall,” but it clearly has a style that could hit a person “just so.” Sorta like “The Cell.” And sorta like ANY cult classic - there are a LOT of people who don’t get Monty Python. For me, the movie off the top of my head is Rubin & Ed.

Joe

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Roger Ebert loveslovesloves it.

Link.
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080529/REVIEWS/805290301

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The reviews I’ve read have been positive or mixed. The consensus seems to be “pretentious, but really cool.” I’m planning on seeing it.

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I saw it a couple of weeks ago, in a pre-release festival screening.

My reaction: I appreciated it more than enjoyed it. The movie has a fairly complicated thematic agenda, which gets in the way of the storytelling at several points. The basic idea is simple (how a story mutates in the transition between teller and listener) but the execution and emotional context is pretty elaborate (the little girl perceives the stuntman’s story in a specific way based on her situation and needs). It’s intellectually fascinating the same way Pan’s Labyrinth is intellectually fascinating, and yes, the high praise is intended. At the same time, though, it’s more superficially entertaining (read: funnier) than Pan’s Labyrinth while less narratively satisfying (focused, polished).

That said, Equipoise is absolutely right about the little girl at the center of the movie. You will absolutely fall in love with her. Truly a great child performance, transcending what we normally think of as “performance” by child actors. Even if the rest of the movie didn’t work at all, I would recommend seeing the film for her alone.

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I’ve seen that word too, and I don’t get “pretentious” at all. Without being a masochist and going to read actual reviews I can’t even imagine what they might think is “pretentious” about it. Is any movie with stunning, unusual visuals pretentious? Is any movie with fantasy sequences in it pretentious? The visuals come straight from the stories he’s telling the little girl. It’s not like they’re “dream sequences” or just blow-you-away visuals out of the blue just because. And the movie has plenty of humor along with the pathos and adventure. He’s telling the story, but she’s interpreting it and even changing it when it suits her [mild spoiler alert](such as visualizing the people in the stories as people she knows as hospital workers or visitors, or the scene where she doesn’t like how one character is talking so he changes speaking voices, or picking up on something he’s forgotten about so he has to change the story to go back and incorporate it.It’s so not pretentious, at least, not in the way I understand the word.

a: making usually unjustified or excessive claims (as of value or standing) <the pretentious fraud who assumes a love of culture that is alien to him — Richard Watts>
b: expressive of affected, unwarranted, or exaggerated importance, worth, or stature <pretentious language>

Neither of those definitions apply to this movie.

Does pretentious = ambitious (also listed on that page)? A synonym for pretentious is “showy” and oh yes, the movie is both ambitious and showy, but what the hell is wrong with that? Should all movies be bland and drab, to avoid the dreaded “pretentious” label? In any case, the movie has a solid emotional core that makes the ambition pay off, and the showy mean something beyond just “ooh, cool visuals.” Only those people who don’t feel the chemistry and emotion of Alexandra/Catinca and Roy/Lee Pace would not think so, and they shouldn’t be watching this movie in the first place. Since these emotionally-stunted reviewers saw it for free it cost them nothing to tear it down.

wheresgeorge04, thanks for the tip about Ruben & Ed. I hadn’t heard of it but now I want to see it!

Sigmagirl, thanks for the Ebert link. That put a smile on my face.

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Now I want to see The Fall! You talked me into it. It’s playing at the Cedar-Lee in Cleveland Heights. We went to see *Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day * there a couple weeks ago, also with Lee Pace. I was surprised to learn that *The Fall * is a couple of years old and is only now being exhibited.

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Interview with Tarsem, the director, at the Onion AV Club.

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I’ve been excited about this movie for a while, full well knowing that I’m going to have to wait until the DVD release.

This is my favorite line from Ebert’s review:

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Thanks, Equipoise. I’m not even going to read past the OP on this thread. I think the movie’s playing at two theaters in Atlanta; I’ll go see it this weekend. I’ve heard there are amazing scenes created without the use of CGI, which is refreshing. I want to go in without knowing what specifically I’ll see.

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I saw this and was knocked out. Some people, critics included, can’t seem to wrap their heads around the idea of incorporating fantasy elements in a drama. But that combination has produced some of the most astonishing films of the last few decades, like “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “Brazil”. The Fall didn’t completely devastate me like those two, but it might well be the best film I’ll see all year (note: I saw 150+ films in the theater last year).

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I liked Lee Pace in Miss Pettigrew too. Now I wish I watched Pushing Daisies. He’s a doll, even though I did want to slap his character in The Fall more than once.

Thank you for that interview vibrotronica! I haven’t finished it yet but it’s fascinating.

You’re welcome Baldwin. My pleasure.

Here are some minor spoilers, meant mostly for people who’ve seen the movie. For anyone who hasn’t, there’s nothing deadly here, just some rants against reviewers who did NOT get it and didn’t even try.

I’ve been a bit of a masochist and have read a few of the negative reviews. They were infuriating. Not liking the movie is one thing, but my “research” so far has indicated a complete lack of understanding regarding what the movie is even about, and what happens, like the guy from Variety (I think) who complained about how bad an actress the little girl was! He especially didn’t like the way she repeated things, so I assume he’s talking about the “save my soul” scene, which was a highlight of the film for me. And then there’s the Hollywood Reporter dude who said “But having a story whose characters and motivations shift so arbitrarily means that viewers have no stake in it emotionally” which makes it obvious that those two are definitely on a different planet than me. Topping it before I got ill and quit torturing myself was a moron from IndieWire who was so clueless he thought that Nurse Evelyn was Roy’s girlfriend, who left him for the movie star, and who mystifyingly thought the Bandit’s Daughter was with the posse from the very beginning, which means he completely missed the significance of Alexandra inserting herself into the story at a crucial moment later in the story. I just had to stop. My eyes couldn’t take the rolling.

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I didn’t fall besottedly in love with it, like Equipoise, but overall I’m going to recommend it. First of all, I fully agree that the most amazing thing about it is Catinca Untaru. Her performance was so natural that personally I’m convinced she wasn’t given any lines ahead of time; they just put her in the scene and she reacted naturally to what was going on around her. If not, her performance is nothing short of supernatural.

Another of the movie’s great strengths is the beauty of the fantasy visuals. To a certain extent, however, these are also its greatest weakness. They’re simply not convincing as the imagery that would be invented by a three-year old, unless she’s a couple years away from being the youngest art director in the history of Italian Vogue. They’re a little too self-conscious and self-indulgent to work within the context of the story, though they’d made a fabulous coffeetable book.

I’d LOVE to see Tarsem to a full-on fantasy film. So far, he’s done two films where he seems to pull his punches; he needs a real world to touch base with just as the fantasy sequences are getting good. As **gaffa **has pointed out above, sometimes this works. I don’t think that’s Tarsem’s strength though.

Oddly, I found I was more fascinated by the “real world” story than the fantasy; I kept wanting to get back to 1915 Los Angeles, because I found that storyline far more compelling; the fantasy sequences were topheavy on the visual side and weak on story. Of course, it’s certainly not irrelevant that the fantasy sequences largely lacked Catinca Untaru, which I’m sure was a large part of what made the “real world” storyline–including some powerful flashbacks–more compelling for me than the fashion-shoot style of the fantasy world.

I tend to be very stingey with “stars.” To me, giving a movie four stars means it’s among the greatest movies ever made; there’s no room for improvement. Lifetime top-ten level great. I’ve only give 4 stars to maybe a dozen or so movies, ever. Two stars is a recommendation, on my personal scale. That said, I’d give The Fall 2.5 or 3, and recommend it pretty strongly.

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I just saw it today. I thought it was awesome. I don’t see a lot of movies in theaters, and I’m glad I made an exception. It wasn’t at all what I expected. I thought it would be mostly a fantasy story with the stuntman and the girl used as a framing device, as in The Princess Bride. Instead, the fantasy is secondary, and the real story is a fairly realistic interplay between a self absorbed charismatic manipulator and a trusting imaginative little girl. I agree with lissener that the visuals were somewhat beyond what a small child might think of, though as an imaginative child myself I didn’t find them completely unrealistic. I thought they were Tarsem’s interpretation of her reaction to the story, rather than a literal visual capture of her thoughts. The acting was excellent, and I loved how Pace’s and Untaru’s deeply felt performances contrasted with the deliberately silly and wooden acting in the fantasy sequences.

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Finally saw the picture. Glad I went to the theater and didn’t wait for it to come out on DVD. At an early Sunday matinee, I was one of only two people in the theater. I plopped down in the middle, put my feet on the rail, and it was like having an enormous home theater, with no distractions.

They certainly found some amazing places in the world to film. I recognized the Taj Mahal, of course, and the other locations ranged from Argentina to Romania. I can’t complain when I leave a movie with my head full of fantastic images.

Did one idiot review actually complain that the little girl was a bad actress? I’ve never seen a more natural, believable interaction between adult and child characters.

ETA: If, as claimed, the movie was made with no computer images at all, I’m amazed at what they did with more traditional methods.

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Actually, they made a promotion-only coffeetable book. It is, indeed, fabulous. The publisher is not identified, but the print quality is right up there with anything published by Taschen.

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Wow, sounds cool. (And, Can I call em or what?)

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Bumping this because I finally got to see it, thanks to Netflix. I would have rather seen it on the big screen but that sort of movie doesn’t make it to this part of the woods. (I was shocked and thrilled when “Pan’s Labyrinth” appeared here.)

Catinca Untaru was indeed an amazing part of this movie. I would also believe that she was given a rough idea of what to say then turned loose on the set. My only beef was the gal who played the ‘love interest’. She didn’t get much in the way of character development so seemed nothing more than furniture.

I’ll be buying this one. Thanks for the heads up. I would have missed out on it otherwise.

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The responses in this thread make me so happy!

Btw, I won one of those oversized coffee table books from the theater that was showing it here. The front of it shows Catinca head to waist, holding her box in her cast hand (they must have made that box out of super-light materials, because the way she held it looked very uncomfortable). The back is the same picture, only from the back (so, front on front, back on back). Plus, there’s a clear, hard plastic sleeve that the entire book slips into that you have to take off to open the book. Actually, it’s clear except that there’s a mask painted on it, so when the sleeve is on, Catinca is wearing the mask, and not, when the sleeve is off. There’s a picture of it laying on top of the poster here (scroll down to the bottom of the page). That must be a subway or otherwise oversized poster, because the book is big but it looks small on the poster. I expected to have to buy one on ebay but then I won it, yay!

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We just saw this last night, and everyone is right: that girl is freakin’ amazing. It wasn’t until I read the interview that I realized little things like the intentionality of the confusion over the Indian, or the symbolism of the teeth. Very, very cool!

I kinda want to see it again, but not quite yet.

Daniel