entirely ruined her disposition with books

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.

( cut for me waxing poetical in the most melodramatic of ways--but no spoilers )

Okay, I have recently been thinking about fictional characters I relate to, specifically how differently I relate to them than Elyssa does. Because I was thinking that she has a type and I have a type. She's all about Angel and Harry and Lee Adama. And I'm over here loving the stuffing out of Spike and Ron and Helo/Gaius/Billy/Felix/basically-all-the-other-male-characters. And the obvious difference is that she loves the Heroes and I love the sidekick/shadow character/whatever.

So of course I want to know why. And I have been digging deeply into this today.

And I have come to the conclusion that it is because I am a giant mess, okay?

( cut for self-indulgent rambling )

I've been meaning to do this forever and ever, ever since I read snickfic's version and realized that we're the same person. But I never got around to it. Then I figured that since Yuletide is coming up, now is the best possible time to finish it up.

So I'm putting this here for now, and no doubt I'll edit it now and then from here until forever as more of my favorite things and least favorite things come to mind.

( Things That Work for Me )

( Things That I Hate )