[critical] The Fall

1915, in a hospital in the outskirts of Los angles, a stunt man, a cripple tells a little girl with the broken arm, a fantasy tale, speaking of five mythical heroes in a distant exotic country. Thanks to the state of mind upset of the storyteller and the lively imagination of the child, the line between fiction and reality becomes blurred as the story advance and become sinister and dangerous.

Author’s Note

[rating:9/10]

Release Date : not among us

Directed by Tarsem Singh

Film american, indian, English

With Lee Pace, Catinca Untaru, Justine Waddell

Duration : 1h57min

Trailer :

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There are movies that you mark as early as their first few seconds. Take for example the recent Watchmen – Guards. You can always bitching about the cast, the vision of Zack Snyder or the new the end of cheap without the legendary giant octopus. However, the introduction of the film, agrees almost everyone. It is a bit the same thing with The Fall and its beginning. Of course, there is not much information disseminated that in the opening of Watchmen, besides the comparison of the two films ends there. Here, the black and white invades the screen, the Seventh Symphony mesmerizes you, the images you snatch and you let go. It is simply beautiful.

The story follows Alexandria, this carefree small Romanian hospital. Bored by the daily routine of the clinic, she lets herself be carried away by the wonderful stories that he tells the story of a stuntman crippled Roy Walker. This could have been a simple story inside another, as in the first part of the film, becomes as an entry in the feelings, the fears, the frustrations of the two main protagonists. Each character finds its origin in a speaker from the real world. Thus, the employee in charge of the radiology dressed in a sombre and imposing costume which scares Alexandria becomes a mold for the soldiers cattle of the army of the evil governor Odious. The pretty nurse taking care of the kid, turns into a damsel in distress. While the visual elements are more related with the imaginary and the lived experience of the child, the fate and the relationships between the heroes of the tale are more of a representation of the feelings of Roy following his tragic fall and his disappointment in love.

There are movies that you mark as early as their first few seconds.

The epic tale that allows the director, we walk through the sets as real as the Taj Mahal or the pyramids thus offering stunning photos. Each plan is meticulously carried out. Of course, some of which are repossessed (in homage ?) the films of Alejandro Jodorowsky, but one is forced to note that it remains no less magnificent. Coming from the world of advertising, and the clip, Tarsem Singh knows to use the images and monte sleek transitions and even a short passage of music illustrating the crossing of the heroes. Regarding the sound, is not in rest. If the opening was strong with Beethoven, the music of Krishna Levy, the perfect companion to the film, with melodies related to those of Shigeru Umebayashi.

Unlike The Cell, the previous film by Tarsem, who included Vincent D’onofrio, Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Lopez, The Fall shows no famous actor. Lee Pace best known, comes from television, accustomed to the series of bryan Fuller : Pushing Daisies and Wonderfalls. Here, his performance is impeccable. The one who gives him the replica, Catinca Untaru, is a perfect unknown, but is a true revelation, far in front of the children-actors usual.

The Fall is a film with the aesthetic thrust with air of the Baron of Münchausen, or Pan’s Labyrinth. Many reproach him for a lack of substance. Despite that, on his two hours, he managed to speak to both the dreams and despair, of the cinema and his first stunt. Anyway, who can resist to these pictures or the game of the two main actors ? In any case neither David Fincher (Fight Club), or Spike Jonze (In The Skin Of John Malkovich) who were given a second youth. Even if he is not ready to come out in France, take advantage of it if you can.

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