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The Fall

Review By: Andrea Tuccillo
AndreaTuccillo@TheCinemaSource.com

The Fall was a risk to say the very least. Director Tarsem Singh (The Cell) made the film on his own budget, shot it in over 26 countries, and cast relative unknowns. He leaped into his dream film project with nothing but sheer passion and a vivid imagination, and in the end he lands safely on his feet. Risky as it may have been, The Fall pays off.

The story switches between two worlds—the reality of a hospital in 1920’s Los Angeles and the surreal world of a story as seen through the mind of a child. As Roy Walker (Lee Pace) lays confined to a hospital bed unable to walk after a movie stunt gone wrong, he . He’s depressed and heart-broken. When a young Romanian girl named Alexandria (Catinca Untaru) with a broken arm wanders into his hospital room one day, he begins telling her a story in the hopes that he can manipulate her into doing things for him. While Roy has ulterior motives for enthralling Alexandria with his fantastic tale, her innocence prevents her from seeing that. So as the days go by, she visits Roy to hear more of the story.

As he tells it, we see it play out as Alexandria imagines it. She pictures the heroes and villains as the patients and staff she has encountered in the hospital. Roy describes his story as one of love and revenge, and it begins to mirror his own troubled state of mind. When the story, and Roy, take a dark turn towards the end, it’s up to Alexandria to save her friend.

Untaru is such a natural that it’s hard to believe there was any acting involved. And in fact, there probably wasn’t. She had never acted before and according to Tarsem, most of the time she didn’t even realize the camera was rolling thanks to some sneaky tactics by the crew. She was just being herself, and she’s an absolute doll, an unself-conscious, innocent little doll. The chemistry between her and Pace is so unforced and genuine that it completely grounds and centers the movie. That too, was another sneaky tactic from Tarsem. He had Pace pretend he really couldn’t walk in order to get real reactions from the other actors. Again, it was a risky move. But it pays off.

Tarsem makes use of his exotic locations to breathtaking effect. None of the scenery is green screen, which makes it all the more amazing. From the burnt orange sands of a desert to opulent, otherworldly palaces to zigzagging labyrinths, the journey is magnificent. They shot in South Africa, India, Bali,