The Fall by serendipity
I discovered the “The Fall” by accident.I cannot call it an “accident” but serendipity.As the initial credits rolled,the names of David Fincher and Spike Jonze flashed.I was a bit apprenshensive of “The Fall” but the names of Fincher and Jonze restored farcical faith in me.(Remember:I am not too familiar with Tarsem Singh,its called the fear of the unknown..I cannot speak about his earlier movie.)
Well for starters this movie can easily boast of the most prolific opening sequence.The striking cinematography at the onset gave me a brief but an unsure opinion about the quality of visuals which would roll on further.
The other aspect which held my imagination at the start even at the opening sequence was the background score.It was by one Mr. Krishna Levy.The colours used fanatically in the frames were quite bright,again a striking look.The cinematography was so rich that I could not take my eyes off the rest of the screen.Every part or prop in the frame was symbolic and adding up to the ensemble.
Striking colo(u)rs
I will completely avoid doing a synopsis or precis writing of “The Fall”.But as I continue writing,it may turn out to be something which I fear.The movie is initially set in a hospital in Los Angeles circa 1920.A kid called Alexandria is busy rummaging through and carrying her little wooden box all around.She has been a forcible guest at the hospital for long enough to get acquainted with the people working at that set up.Nursing an arm injury,she loved receiving attention from one particular nurse called Evelyn.Alexandria was not too happy with the scanty attention she would receive.
Alexandria,a curious kid meets Roy, an injured stuntman (note the importance of the opening sequence here).Roy is paralysed waist down and has few visitors,almost negligible. As time passes by,the disillusioned Roy would engage Alexandria in his contrived concocted story.
At this juncture, the entire movie goes for a change in terms of flow.The movie transitions in and out of fantasy and real life with ultimate ease.
Blue Bandit and Alexandria
Alexandria enjoyed the Roy’s story sessions whichwould be interupted when she would run errands for Roy.During the story telling she would beautifully incorpotare real time characters into fantasy.Again the characters in fantasy would be supplanted by more convincing characters from real life..all at the behest and convinience of Alexandria’s imagination.For eg. She replaces her father with Roy as the Blue Bandit (character from her fantasy).Also the Evelyn incident in the movie changes Alexandria’s thoughts.
The Indian
Alexandria’s transiton between real life and fantasy became more seamless as she gets deeply involved into the Roy’s story.During one of her errands for Roy,she has a fall from a height.This is a turning point in Alexandria’s real life with respect to Roy and also her fantasy world which is strongly inter-connected.I will not divulge much and would urge you to watch this underatted piece of art.
Aspects I liked:
1.Breathtaking Visuals
2.Surrealism
3.The pace (This is where the beauty of ”The Fall” lies)
4. The B&W treat towards the end
5.Alexandria (Loved every line she uttered)
6.Haunting background score
7.Locales
8. Roy
9. DOP: Colin Watkinson
Three cheers for Tarsem Singh for making “The Fall”.
One of the gems which went unnoticed and is underrated.I fail to understand why do I end up loving the underdogs or the underrated?
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Hey I also accidentally noticed in a free movie sharing site…even the posters made me curious…
When I saw it I was not disappointed either…outstanding visuals…
I especially liked the parts shot in Jodhpur…in fact I had visited the city only a few days before seeing teh film & thought it had great potential to be a backdrop of some epic film…The Fall was like a dream come true…
Someone on the net recommended this movie saying that this is a lot like The Fountain, directed by Darren Aronofsky which is one of my favourites.
I watched this movie recently and loved it, the story is very poignant and cinematography is great.
Well hope I am accident prone..:)
while I liked all the aspects you mentioned ,the little girl alexandria was the most endearing one for me in this movie.The manner in which she speaks is just like how a child does and it hardly seemed like acting.
Saw the movie sometime back and it is *quite* an awesome movie. The storytelling and the storytelling within the storytelling (
) was quite spellbinding. Ofc loved the visuals but I really felt this was storytelling at its most basic… With a child imagining things as they were being narrated to her… Stuff like the Red Indian (in Roy’s story) being interpreted as the Indian/Sardar by Alexandria…
Came across this (long but) very interesting interview of his recently on the A.V. Club -
http://www.avclub.com/articles/tarsem,14243/
True Bala..valid point.But it was Tarsem who made it look real.If you would notice,the conversation between was as real as possible.You could hear Roy asking Alexandria to repeat what she said in the most unaffected manner.The conversation was not at all dramatised.
@rbehemoth… the story was very basic…so was Roys storytelling in the movie…but Tarsem’s storytelling was advanced..
Thanks for the link.
Secondly did you notice a flaw in the opening sequence? In one of the shot..where the loco is on the tracks..the smoke billows from the coal engine.But in one particular shot..in slo mo..there is no smoke billowing in that shot..even when the rope falls down the bridge into the river maintaining the continuity.
Ah, what a fantastic film! Truly splendid visuals. I was lucky enough to have won a promotional book of stills from The Fall, which sits on my desk at work.
I hope Tarsem’s future work will be as good as The Fall. It truly was a passion project for him, as he funded it out of his own pocket. Let’s hope his wonderful style isn’t used for a pedestrian action thriller or something, a la The Cell.
@Sourav-7
.
Had to see the scene again to understand what you meant…
Not very sure what you mean but still from my understanding, a possible explanation is that it looked different coz of different angles or because of the dark background of the sky. The different angles have a noticeable effect on the ‘intensity’ of the smoke in other shots in the scene…
And I used ‘basic storytelling’ in a very positive/attractive sense. I meant that Tarsem was essentially narrating a story to us via Roy and Alexandria… And ofcourse to tap/understand that basic sense of storytelling to such effect itself maybe termed as ‘advanced storytelling’
@ravi..what is the book all about??
@rbehemoth: you got exactly what I was tryin to put forward.But if you see in the similar angle we see darker smoke billowing out.I understood the shot angle aspect..or first person perspective you put across..
Hell I want it to be a flaw…:D
Oh I got what you wanyedto say about the storytelling..makes sense now