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Lee Pace stars in an offbeat fairy tale for grownups that squeaks by on its visual panache and some major male eye candy
Strange Magic:
The Fall
5-30-08 "Knight Thoughts" web exclusive review
By Richard Knight, Jr.
The Fall
5-30-08 "Knight Thoughts" web exclusive review
By Richard Knight, Jr.
Tarsem, a director of commercials and music videos with eye popping visuals is now seeing his long delayed feature debut, The
Fall, finally get a release in America. It hasn't probably hurt that David Fincher and Spike Jonze, high profile friends of the director
have lent their name to the movie as “Presenters” or that the Q Rating of the movie's star Lee Pace has risen considerably since the
film was shot in 2006 (via his starring role in the quirky ABC show “Pushing Daisies”). Or that it opens in a week when the typical gut
busting summer blockbuster fare is in a temporary lull (Sex and the City notwithstanding). With a movie as decidedly unusual as this
one, every little bit is going to help.
The movie is set in a hospital in Los Angeles in the 1920s. After attempting a crazy, silent movie stunt (involving a horse, a train
crossing a bridge over a gorge and a really steep drop into the water below) the injured stunt man, Roy Walker (Pace) lies in the
hospital recuperating. In another part of the hospital Alexandria (Cantica Untaru) a lonely little girl, daughter of orange pickers
recovering from a broken arm, wanders into Roy's room. She prevails upon Roy to tell her a story and returns each day as Roy
weaves a tale worthy of Scheherazade. This fantastic tale (told by Tarsem with thrilling visual pyrotechnics courtesy of his
cinematographer Colin Watkinson and 26 locations spread out over 18 countries) involves a group of five mythical heroes (Pace
plays the leader and the others include Alexander the Great, Darwin, etc.) in a quest to rescue a kidnapped princess. To a man,
these five are not only courageous but ain't exactly hard to look upon (to my eyes these guys each represented a different physical
specimen of gay culture - right down to Darwin with his multi-colored fur coat just like the one I wore nightclubbin' in the 80s and a
foofy lap monkey). There are floating red capes fluttering against the dessert sky, a walled fortress, an elephant swimming, etc.
(much of this reminiscent of the dreamscapes Tarsem visualized in his previous film The Cell). Tarsem also brings along Eiko
Ishioka from The Cell who again supplies fabulous costumes (as she did for Bram Stoker’s Dracula, justly winning the Oscar for her
efforts).
Roy's tale corresponds with his real life heartbreak - the leading lady that he thought was his has broken his heart and transferred
her affections to her leading man (who is naturally the villain in the fairy tale). As Roy is relating the tale he's in so much pain -
both physically and emotionally - that the fantasy sequences take on the quality of a fever dream. Roy also has an ulterior motive,
he’s so heartsick that he wants to kill himself and he hopes to convince Alexandria to sneak into the hospital pharmacy and bring
him enough morphine to do the job. The visuals (including a hallucination sequence that looks as if the Quay Brothers animated it
though they didn’t) are fantastic but they only hold for so long and the finale sort of slips through the fingers as the fairytale, which
seems to decay along with Roy, recedes into the background.
The friendship that Pace (who after Soldier’s Girl, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day and now this is officially the poster boy for
lovesickness) and Untaru develop feels genuine and is touching and it helps that Untaru looks like a real kid, is persnickety and
doesn’t overdo the cutes. But able as they are The Fall is a movie that will be remembered for its astounding look, not its
performances. It’s one of those movies that’s going to find some passionate acolytes – no movie with this much visual panache is
likely to be forgotten. Case in point: do you remember the horns on the guy and that long flowing cape in The Cell or do you
remember an anxious JLo as his intended victim? That’s what I thought.
Fall, finally get a release in America. It hasn't probably hurt that David Fincher and Spike Jonze, high profile friends of the director
have lent their name to the movie as “Presenters” or that the Q Rating of the movie's star Lee Pace has risen considerably since the
film was shot in 2006 (via his starring role in the quirky ABC show “Pushing Daisies”). Or that it opens in a week when the typical gut
busting summer blockbuster fare is in a temporary lull (Sex and the City notwithstanding). With a movie as decidedly unusual as this
one, every little bit is going to help.
The movie is set in a hospital in Los Angeles in the 1920s. After attempting a crazy, silent movie stunt (involving a horse, a train
crossing a bridge over a gorge and a really steep drop into the water below) the injured stunt man, Roy Walker (Pace) lies in the
hospital recuperating. In another part of the hospital Alexandria (Cantica Untaru) a lonely little girl, daughter of orange pickers
recovering from a broken arm, wanders into Roy's room. She prevails upon Roy to tell her a story and returns each day as Roy
weaves a tale worthy of Scheherazade. This fantastic tale (told by Tarsem with thrilling visual pyrotechnics courtesy of his
cinematographer Colin Watkinson and 26 locations spread out over 18 countries) involves a group of five mythical heroes (Pace
plays the leader and the others include Alexander the Great, Darwin, etc.) in a quest to rescue a kidnapped princess. To a man,
these five are not only courageous but ain't exactly hard to look upon (to my eyes these guys each represented a different physical
specimen of gay culture - right down to Darwin with his multi-colored fur coat just like the one I wore nightclubbin' in the 80s and a
foofy lap monkey). There are floating red capes fluttering against the dessert sky, a walled fortress, an elephant swimming, etc.
(much of this reminiscent of the dreamscapes Tarsem visualized in his previous film The Cell). Tarsem also brings along Eiko
Ishioka from The Cell who again supplies fabulous costumes (as she did for Bram Stoker’s Dracula, justly winning the Oscar for her
efforts).
Roy's tale corresponds with his real life heartbreak - the leading lady that he thought was his has broken his heart and transferred
her affections to her leading man (who is naturally the villain in the fairy tale). As Roy is relating the tale he's in so much pain -
both physically and emotionally - that the fantasy sequences take on the quality of a fever dream. Roy also has an ulterior motive,
he’s so heartsick that he wants to kill himself and he hopes to convince Alexandria to sneak into the hospital pharmacy and bring
him enough morphine to do the job. The visuals (including a hallucination sequence that looks as if the Quay Brothers animated it
though they didn’t) are fantastic but they only hold for so long and the finale sort of slips through the fingers as the fairytale, which
seems to decay along with Roy, recedes into the background.
The friendship that Pace (who after Soldier’s Girl, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day and now this is officially the poster boy for
lovesickness) and Untaru develop feels genuine and is touching and it helps that Untaru looks like a real kid, is persnickety and
doesn’t overdo the cutes. But able as they are The Fall is a movie that will be remembered for its astounding look, not its
performances. It’s one of those movies that’s going to find some passionate acolytes – no movie with this much visual panache is
likely to be forgotten. Case in point: do you remember the horns on the guy and that long flowing cape in The Cell or do you
remember an anxious JLo as his intended victim? That’s what I thought.
