DVD REVIEW: THE FALL
by Daniel G. Keohane

(2006, DVD released 2009)

From the opening credit sequence, shot in black & white with a beautiful rendition of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 – Allegro playing along, you know you’re in for a visual treat in THE FALL (2006). From a montage of scenes during the credits – Old West cowboys waving their hats from a bridge; a steam engine locomotive; two men in the water thrashing about; the final image of a dead horse lifted from the water by a crane – you’d expect a Western. It’s a beautiful, haunting opening, and sets the stage for what I feel is a beautiful, haunting film.

It’s not a Western. Though I usually review science fiction movies, the closest this comes is fantasy, along the lines of BIG FISH (2003), only darker. THE FALL is a fairy tale for adults, one told by a depressive and visualized by a five year old.

The setting: early 20^th century California. What we experienced in the opening credits was a stunt filmed for a silent Western movie gone horribly awry. When the stuntman leaped, on horseback, from a trestle bridge, the fall left the horse dead and the man paralyzed. These details are spoon fed to the viewer through half-gleaned snippets of conversation overheard by the true star of the film, a five year-old girl with a broken arm named Alexandria.

Alexandria is a patient in the children’s ward of a hospital. She is played by Romanian newcomer Catinca Untaru. Untaru is without a doubt the most adorable little girl you will ever see on the big screen. Though this movie was extremely good, visually stunning with some excellent acting, it would have been only a fraction as good without this girl playing the lead. Untaru shines with sincerity and heart-wrenching cuteness. All that, plus send me off a bridge on horseback if she can’t act.

When Alexandria tosses a personal note for her nurse out the window, it blows onto the lap of the stuntman one floor below. After a cute scene of this kid wandering about the hospital, arm raised in a cast, our characters come together. Roy the stuntman, played with quiet intensity by Lee Pace (from the TV series PUSHING DAISIES, 2007-2009), returns her note and, because of her name, tells the girl a legend about Alexander the Great, a story I remember learning in history class myself, but which has nothing to do with the movie, so let’s move on. She comes back the next day for a new story, for he’s promised her an “epic tale” which becomes the other, driving storyline running in parallel with the real world tale of Roy and Alexandria.

Their friendship is immediate, and feels very real on the screen. Her attraction to the fallen stuntman is more obvious than his is to her. Her father was killed by a mob (or some robbers, the reasons are never clearly explained even in a later flashback). She speaks of it matter-of-factly, but it had a strong impact on her, as is obvious when Roy’s story progresses and becomes darker and more violent. It also accounts for her sudden closeness with this stranger. He becomes a replacement father figure (smarter reviewers than I would probably have used some vague New Yorker style French term there, I suppose – I could have said “He becomes a Zweizig father” and impress some of you, but since Zweizig means “twenty” in German, I’d only be bluffing).

This is a period piece. I have to assume it’s historically accurate, but the cool thing about this movie is it doesn’t try to explain itself or life in the 1920’s, some of  which might seem alien to us ninety years later. It simply is what it is – or was – for the time. Because you have to accept it at face value without some clever narrative trick to explain to us modernites, it feels more real, immerses you in the setting – it did for me, at least – and adds a bit of surrealism to the real world setting.

Roy tells the story to her, but seen from Alexandria’s perspective, with each character played by someone significant in her life. This difference lends an odd twist to the visuals, since at times what Roy actually says and what is played out are at odds with each other. One character is an “Indian.” Roy uses terms like “wigwam” and “squaw” but she visualizes a prince from the country of India. The tale revolves around six exiled characters vowing vengeance on the evil Governor Odious for personal reasons. The Indian’s companions are an ex-slave, an explosives expert named Luigi, Naturalist Charles Darwin and his pet monkey Wallace, a “Mystic” and lastly the masked Black Bandit who must save his twin brother from Odious’ evil clutches. In Alexandria’s mind, Roy is the bandit. Their adventure begins with an escape from island exile on the back of a swimming elephant – no, seriously. I still don’t know if they found a swimming elephant for this scene or if it was some kind of special effect. I think it was real. The characters are odd, and generally stay within their two-dimensional personas throughout. The actors portraying them, mostly unknowns, don’t have a lot of room for character development, except for the brief moments they get to appear as their real-world counterparts.

Initially, the epic tale is a goofy fairy tale/adventure. Alexandria becomes lost in the story. As it continues, Roy falls deeper into depression (both over his injuries and a seriously broken heart), and so it takes darker and darker turns, such as when the brother is found horribly murdered by Odious. Alex often interrupts the story and insists Roy change it when this happens. Sometimes he does. Sometimes he doesn’t.

Each character wears a particular brightly-colored outfit, often in contrast to the starkness of a desert scene or stone buildings of the exotic cities they visit. The locations are real, shot in nearly two dozen countries if the long list of locales in the closing credits is any indication. All of this works to make this film an incredible, visual feast. (Sorry for the flowery writing. Never write a review when you’re hungry.)

When not narrating the tale, Roy’s depression drives him to convince Alexandria to sneak into the dispensary and steal morphine, under the auspices of helping him to sleep. His plan, however, is suicide. His growing determination to kill himself runs parallel to the girl’s growing love for this sad, broken man.

The interplay between Roy and Alexandria is the glue in this story, and I’m not exaggerating saying I’d be hard-pressed in all the films I’ve seen to find better chemistry between two actors. I often wondered if the filmmakers outlined a scene for Untaru and Pace to perform, then let them improvise. They must have, as brilliant a screen personality Untaru is, she was only 5 years old! How she could memorize not only the lines but also how to speak them? I’ll assume many of their one-to-one exchanges were improvised to a point, then. A wonderful example is one in which she steals a Eucharist wafer from the chapel and shares it with Roy, thinking it is a cookie. Roy asks if she is trying to save his soul. She has no idea what he’s talking about. He presses the point, but she simply doesn’t get it. They could have edited the scene down, but they didn’t and I’m glad. It’s a beautiful interchange between adult and child.

Roy’s depression deepens, and his epic tale grows more violent, to the point where you understand why this movie has an R rating. Alexandria senses the undercurrent of meaning in Roy’s story, overhearing words like suicide floating about and seeing signs of death around her. She insinuates herself into the story, in order to right the plot, becoming an actual character – the Black Bandit’s daughter.

THE FALL feels a lot like a foreign movie both for the myriad exotic locations mentioned above, and the heavy focus on character development over linear plot progression at times.  It is also a remake of the Bulgarian film YO HO HO (1981), directed by Zako Heskija, and kept close to the original’s plot.

I did have a couple of issues with the movie. The first is a bit two-handed, complaint and compliment. Ever watch one of those movies where the dialogue sounds and feels real, to the point that you’ve got no idea what they’re actually saying because the actors are mumbling too much? Much of the dialogue between Roy and his agent/lawyer is done this way, as background mutterings. What they’re saying is key to understanding why Roy is depressed, and how badly. Many conversations between him and Alexandria, hiding in their private world under the bed curtains, are whispered. The fact that Untaru is a little kid with missing front teeth didn’t help matters. I found myself rewinding a bit and replaying a scene with the subtitles, then eventually left them on so I wouldn’t miss any lines.

Another issue relates to the fact that I can be slow on the uptake. I occasionally forgot that the fantasy story was played out in Alex’s imagination, off-kilter from Roy’s words. His heart was broken by the lead actress of the Western, and puts her into his story as the love / hate interest. We see, playing the role, Alexandria’s caretaker Nurse Evelyn (Justine Wedell) and not the movie star. A couple of scenes were confusing with this wrong-character approach, because I was lost as to who was who and how they related to each other. It took me sorting out my thoughts writing this review to realize some of the subtler points.

Regardless of these minor issues, THE FALL is a brilliantly made, and well-acted film. It was directed by Tarsem Singh, known for only one other film – THE CELL (2000), a serial killer movie which I actually thought was extremely clever and well done (and I usually hate serial killer movies). Like many foreign films I’ve enjoyed (because as you know, only cool people watch foreign films), THE FALL doesn’t wrap things up with a ribbon and bow, but it comes pretty close, and it doesn’t have to. Well, OK, it does, but like the finale of LOST (2010, or 1976, no, 2004, or is it 1390?) it takes a while to sink in. Watch this movie for the stunning, award-winning cinematography and exotic locations, the brilliant writing and the best interplay between lead actors (Catinca Untaru and Lee Pace) I’ve had the pleasure to experience in a film in a long, long time.

THE FALL is not a standard fantasy film, but it is a very human, very unique drama with fantasy elements – the fantasies of a child and a man blending together as each deal with a world that hurt them. A story of love lost and found, and most of all the love of a parent and child, whether biological or not. I know, all this sentimentality is going to get me beaten up at recess. If you’re not one who likes this kind of tear-jerking drama, or if your first instinct on seeing a small child playing with a toy is to sneak up and kick her in the behind, this might not be the best film for you.

I promise not to give four out of five “things” to every movie I review, but I will this time. I give THE FALL four Adorable Child Actors out of five, with the caveats above. But if you aren’t charmed by Untaru’s performance or at least smile when Wallace the playful monkey comes on scene, then you’re probably a dangerous sociopath anyway and I’m taking you off my Christmas list. (Well, OK, Wallace the playful monkey was a little creepy….)

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© Copyright 2010 by Daniel G. Keohane