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The Fall
This is a movie pimp post.
Warning: This post contains gratuitous purple prose.
So my favorite movie is The Fall, by director/co-writer/visionary/freaking genius Tarsem Singh. The film was shot on 26 locations over 18 countries and took over 8 years to film, and Singh paid for the whole thing out-of-pocket because he believed in his vision so deeply.
The movie is the most gorgeous thing I have ever seen in my life. And that’s what people notice about it the first time they see it. It will make you want to travel. I seriously have to be careful about when I watch it because after I’m done I have such profound wanderlust that it makes me restless for a few days. It's a movie to restore your wonder in the world and its variety and beauty.
The plot, as far as it goes, is pretty simple. In a hospital in Los Angeles in the 1920s, a little girl named Alexandria (brilliantly played by Catinca Untaru) being treated for a broken arm wanders into another ward where she finds a bed-ridden man named Roy (played by Lee Pace, as if you needed another reason to watch this movie). They begin a tentative friendship, and Roy begins to tell Alexandria a story. He makes it up as he goes, and if you’re looking for a plot where everything has continuity and make sense, his story won’t be for you. Instead, it’s a story like most stories we make up for children—it rambles and sometimes contradicts itself and grows in the telling. It’s also ridiculous and fantastic and beautiful. Alexandria comes to visit Roy again and again and his story grows and so does their relationship. But Roy’s got a backstory of his own, as well as his own motives, and the movie takes turns you probably couldn’t have anticipated.
These images are, in my opinion, the key to understanding the movie.
When I was in college, the English department did movie nights, and I basically forced everyone to watch it (for the record, every single person loved it). Afterwards, I was talking to one of my professors, and he said, “I was a bit unclear on what he was trying to do with the film until I remembered the scene where the image of the horse outside came through the keyhole, and then I realized. This movie, honestly, isn’t at all about plot. It isn’t even really about characters. It’s a movie about movies. A story about stories.”
Exactly.
The opening and closing scenes (which I won’t get into—spoilers!) create bookends for the film, reminding you that this is about movies and what’s possible on film—basically, anything. This is the only movie that I’ve ever felt takes advantage of its cinematic nature to the fullest extent. I’m a sucker for a pretty movie—I adore Marie Antoinette because it’s so damn pretty—so I’ve seen a lot of movies that put a lot of thought into visuals (obviously) but none that can compare to this one. Singh finds the most gorgeous and mind-blowing places on earth to film this movie, and he knows where to put the camera to showcase them. You have to keep reminding yourself, again and again, that these places actually exist—none of them are computer generated (though there is a bit of tricky camera work to make some of them closer to each other than they are). There’s a weight to these places, a realness, a texture, that contrasts so much with all of these CGI-dominated films. You think they’re amazing until you see what reality looks like. I get the feeling that Singh said, “Let’s go all the way. All the way to the stars. Don’t hold anything back. This movie needs to remind us that film can set your imagination free.” He reminds us of why we watch movies—to be totally transported. To catch a glimpse of what another person’s imagination looks like. That’s what movies are about.
But most of all, this is a story about stories. About the differences between the story the teller tells and the one the hearer hears. Roy is a pretty straightforward all-American guy. Alexandria, on the other hand, is the daughter of Eastern European immigrants who spends most of her time with other immigrants. So when Roy introduces an Indian into his story, he uses words he associates with “Indians”—squaw, wigwam, etc. Alexandria, though, hears the word “Indian” and thinks of someone from India, and the “squaw” we as viewers see is wearing a sari, and the “wigwam” is a gorgeous piece of Indian architecture. These little tells are delightful and fun to watch for (one of my favorites involves a sneeze), and they remind us that the hearer (or reader or view) of any story participates in the creation of the story just as fully as the teller does, and that while there is a tension between what the teller intends and what the hearer understands, that isn’t a bad thing—in fact, it’s in that tension that the story lives.
It’s a story about stories. About the ways that we use stories for both good and evil, for selfless and selfish reasons. Sometimes we tell stories for the sheer enjoyment of sharing. Sometimes we tell them to manipulate or deceive. We tell them to delight each other or to heal someone or ourselves. We tell them because we’re bored or because we can’t not tell them. We use them to escape or because we can’t find another way to face an unbearable truth. And all of those reasons? Are present in this movie. And sometimes the reason we’re telling them isn’t the reason other people are listening.
It’s a story about stories. About the ways that stories form relationships and community. It’s the story that’s at the heart of Roy and Alexandria’s relationship. It’s what brings them together every day, even though they couldn’t be less alike and no one would expect them to come to mean so much to each other. Stories draw us together, sometimes bridging chasms that we would otherwise be unable to cross. But sometimes we also use them to keep people at a distance, to conceal who we really are and what we really believe. Stories are powerful.
It’s a story about stories. About the way stories grow in the telling and end up taking us to places we never could have imagined. About how one character stars out at the center of a story, but by the end we find that a different one is the hero. About how we can label heroes and villains but sometimes the truth is more complicated. About juxtaposition and contrast and putting together two things that might never have belonged together before. About how it doesn’t have to make literal sense as long as it makes emotional sense.
It’s a story about stories. About the power that they have to heal or destroy or help us grow up. About the way they help us understand truths that might be too big for us in their abstract form. About how they can reveal things about us that we didn’t know we had inside.
It's a story about stories. And it's my favorite. If you haven't watched it, do yourself a favor and do so. And then come back here and tell me how much you love it.
Warning: This post contains gratuitous purple prose.
So my favorite movie is The Fall, by director/co-writer/visionary/freaking genius Tarsem Singh. The film was shot on 26 locations over 18 countries and took over 8 years to film, and Singh paid for the whole thing out-of-pocket because he believed in his vision so deeply.
The movie is the most gorgeous thing I have ever seen in my life. And that’s what people notice about it the first time they see it. It will make you want to travel. I seriously have to be careful about when I watch it because after I’m done I have such profound wanderlust that it makes me restless for a few days. It's a movie to restore your wonder in the world and its variety and beauty.
The plot, as far as it goes, is pretty simple. In a hospital in Los Angeles in the 1920s, a little girl named Alexandria (brilliantly played by Catinca Untaru) being treated for a broken arm wanders into another ward where she finds a bed-ridden man named Roy (played by Lee Pace, as if you needed another reason to watch this movie). They begin a tentative friendship, and Roy begins to tell Alexandria a story. He makes it up as he goes, and if you’re looking for a plot where everything has continuity and make sense, his story won’t be for you. Instead, it’s a story like most stories we make up for children—it rambles and sometimes contradicts itself and grows in the telling. It’s also ridiculous and fantastic and beautiful. Alexandria comes to visit Roy again and again and his story grows and so does their relationship. But Roy’s got a backstory of his own, as well as his own motives, and the movie takes turns you probably couldn’t have anticipated.
These images are, in my opinion, the key to understanding the movie.
When I was in college, the English department did movie nights, and I basically forced everyone to watch it (for the record, every single person loved it). Afterwards, I was talking to one of my professors, and he said, “I was a bit unclear on what he was trying to do with the film until I remembered the scene where the image of the horse outside came through the keyhole, and then I realized. This movie, honestly, isn’t at all about plot. It isn’t even really about characters. It’s a movie about movies. A story about stories.”
Exactly.
The opening and closing scenes (which I won’t get into—spoilers!) create bookends for the film, reminding you that this is about movies and what’s possible on film—basically, anything. This is the only movie that I’ve ever felt takes advantage of its cinematic nature to the fullest extent. I’m a sucker for a pretty movie—I adore Marie Antoinette because it’s so damn pretty—so I’ve seen a lot of movies that put a lot of thought into visuals (obviously) but none that can compare to this one. Singh finds the most gorgeous and mind-blowing places on earth to film this movie, and he knows where to put the camera to showcase them. You have to keep reminding yourself, again and again, that these places actually exist—none of them are computer generated (though there is a bit of tricky camera work to make some of them closer to each other than they are). There’s a weight to these places, a realness, a texture, that contrasts so much with all of these CGI-dominated films. You think they’re amazing until you see what reality looks like. I get the feeling that Singh said, “Let’s go all the way. All the way to the stars. Don’t hold anything back. This movie needs to remind us that film can set your imagination free.” He reminds us of why we watch movies—to be totally transported. To catch a glimpse of what another person’s imagination looks like. That’s what movies are about.
But most of all, this is a story about stories. About the differences between the story the teller tells and the one the hearer hears. Roy is a pretty straightforward all-American guy. Alexandria, on the other hand, is the daughter of Eastern European immigrants who spends most of her time with other immigrants. So when Roy introduces an Indian into his story, he uses words he associates with “Indians”—squaw, wigwam, etc. Alexandria, though, hears the word “Indian” and thinks of someone from India, and the “squaw” we as viewers see is wearing a sari, and the “wigwam” is a gorgeous piece of Indian architecture. These little tells are delightful and fun to watch for (one of my favorites involves a sneeze), and they remind us that the hearer (or reader or view) of any story participates in the creation of the story just as fully as the teller does, and that while there is a tension between what the teller intends and what the hearer understands, that isn’t a bad thing—in fact, it’s in that tension that the story lives.
It’s a story about stories. About the ways that we use stories for both good and evil, for selfless and selfish reasons. Sometimes we tell stories for the sheer enjoyment of sharing. Sometimes we tell them to manipulate or deceive. We tell them to delight each other or to heal someone or ourselves. We tell them because we’re bored or because we can’t not tell them. We use them to escape or because we can’t find another way to face an unbearable truth. And all of those reasons? Are present in this movie. And sometimes the reason we’re telling them isn’t the reason other people are listening.
It’s a story about stories. About the ways that stories form relationships and community. It’s the story that’s at the heart of Roy and Alexandria’s relationship. It’s what brings them together every day, even though they couldn’t be less alike and no one would expect them to come to mean so much to each other. Stories draw us together, sometimes bridging chasms that we would otherwise be unable to cross. But sometimes we also use them to keep people at a distance, to conceal who we really are and what we really believe. Stories are powerful.
It’s a story about stories. About the way stories grow in the telling and end up taking us to places we never could have imagined. About how one character stars out at the center of a story, but by the end we find that a different one is the hero. About how we can label heroes and villains but sometimes the truth is more complicated. About juxtaposition and contrast and putting together two things that might never have belonged together before. About how it doesn’t have to make literal sense as long as it makes emotional sense.
It’s a story about stories. About the power that they have to heal or destroy or help us grow up. About the way they help us understand truths that might be too big for us in their abstract form. About how they can reveal things about us that we didn’t know we had inside.
It's a story about stories. And it's my favorite. If you haven't watched it, do yourself a favor and do so. And then come back here and tell me how much you love it.
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Thank you! Favorite. Movie.
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You're welcome! :D
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I'm a HUGE sucker for stories about stories. But the wanderlust thing might be dangerous. I've been known to research the joining the Peace Corps and teaching English in Korea and Nepal after a binge of Travel Channel shows. So... if you never hear from me again, it might be because I'm in Nepal, and don't have Internet.
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And honey--you've never watched everything worth watching! ;D
HAHAHA I LOVE YOU SO MUCH. Brace yourself!
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And it's streaming on netflix! Yay! Will come back and tell you how I liked it when I finish. :)
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Like I said before. Love.
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And YES to the details--and you pick up on more and more of them as you rewatch! Basically everything in her dream!world has a basis in real life, and it's like playing a game to pick them out. The texture of this movie, I swear.
I AM SO PLEASED!
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I can tell why you love it, you story-teller you!
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I'm so pleased I'm seal-clapping!
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Friendship: when you recommend movies and tv and books and your friend immediately accepts that they must indeed be awesome.
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Hey did you see
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The director's coming out with a new movie soon about Theseus as played by Henry Cavill, and I'm so pumped for it!
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But I did know that he's working on a Snow White movie (!!!) but doing the real Brother's Grimm tale (!!!x5). I heart him.
I also heart Lee Pace and wish that he had more recognition for his role in The Fall. How could you not fall in love with that man?
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I know! He's so pretty but with real acting chops. If he doesn't become a huge star, there is no justice in the world.
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So when Roy introduces an Indian into his story, he uses words he associates with “Indians”—squaw, wigwam, etc. Alexandria, though, hears the word “Indian” and thinks of someone from India, and the “squaw” we as viewers see is wearing a sari, and the “wigwam” is a gorgeous piece of Indian architecture.
Yes! This was one of my favourite little details in the movie!
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:D
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