Director: Tarsem Singh
Writers: Dan Gilroy, Nico Soultanakis, Tarsem Singh
Stars: Lee Pace, Catinca Untaru, Justine Waddell
Synopsis: In 1920s Los Angeles, a bedridden patient in a hospital captivates a young girl with a fantastic tale of heroes, myths, and villains on a desert island.
With any film festival comes a variety of opportunities. You have the chance to discover emerging filmmakers with a debut or sophomore film. There’s usually a new film from a veteran that you’ve never had the opportunity to check out before. These are both exciting, but there’s a third possibility at some film festivals. It’s a personal favorite of mine for any festival I happen to be attending: retrospectives! The 2024 edition of Fantastic Fest certainly had plenty of restorations on their lineup to celebrate. So in between discovering the latest from filmmakers of all statues, I also had the opportunity to check out a film that was recently restored for audiences both old and new alike.
I sat down for Tarsem Singh’s 2006 film, The Fall, knowing absolutely nothing. In my opinion, it is the absolute best way to head into any film. And right off the bat, I was nearly catapulted out of my seat. The first card shown is “Presented by David Fincher and Spike Jonze.” At the very least, I figured something special was about to be experienced. And that thought couldn’t have been more correct! Despite feeling, at times, like a bit of a mixed bag, I was immensely taken by The Fall. Nowadays, we so often see film marketing claim it’s from “the visionary mind of” its filmmaker. It’s certainly a buzzy way to build intrigue with ease. This feels like a film that can truly be described as such. It’s practically overflowing with ideas, both thematically and visually. I would argue that at no point does The Fall take the path of least resistance. In fact, by its very design, it often takes the path of most resistance. The reason being is its structure: this is one massive fable being told. Having the audience accept this conceit allows Tarsem to run rampant with whatever choice he decides to make. And more often than not, the choices keep you laughing, riddled with thrills, moved with sadness or worry, and captured with an overall sense of intrigue and excitement. That The Fall can sustain such constant surprises throughout its runtime should be more than enough to get people to seek out this film. But that’s not all it has to offer.
There’s much to love from Tarsem’s film, and we should be appreciative of its new found glory! The Fall has long been living in a void lacking distribution and the inability to find it on any streaming platform. As such, it has remained in limbo for quite some time. For example, the screening I viewed this in was made up of about 60% first-time viewers. The rest, from what I could gather, had either seen it during its release nearly 20 years ago, or on a tough-to-track-down DVD. Regardless of experience with the film, the attention-grabbing nature of the experience had everybody hooked from very early on. There’s plenty of reasons as to why. For starters, the entire film is framed around one of the most adorable child performances I’ve ever seen in a film; Catinca Untaru as Alexandria. It’s an absolutely gorgeous film, bursting with colors and imaginative costumes and locales. At any given moment, the film is liable to simply spin the camera and reveal an entirely new environment. From massive deserts to lush green pastures, to labyrinthian mazes and regal castles, The Fall feels like a true adventure. But most importantly, I found myself immensely moved by the core of The Fall.
The story at surface value goes like this: Roy Walker (Lee Pace) is stuck in a hospital bed in 1920s Los Angeles after a filmmaking stunt gone wrong. The young Alexandria is spending time in the same hospital with a broken arm after falling down. Alexandria meets Roy briefly, but the next day, she returns and Roy begins to tell her an epic story. Not that the hospital sequences aren’t visually exciting (they’re also gorgeous), but it’s in this tale that Tarsem captures the true power of cinema. Within a framework of his own design, he is able to literally capture imagination and put it onto the screen within the necessity and context of the story. As this story begins to unfold, The Fall serves as a reminder that our stories have the ability to take us to the farthest reaches of the world. We can make them up as we go along. In turn, the sights we’ll see and the people we’ll meet will astound and change us. But of course, with the exciting prospect of discovery laying before us, there’s also the opportunity for great pain and sadness.
As Roy tells Alexandria more and more of this story, we learn more about both of them. Roy is struggling deeply, both mentally and emotionally. He plans on committing suicide, and slowly, we see how he tries to get Alexandria to help with his plan. Roy isn’t a monster though. He does all he can to protect her. But his pain and his anger at the world bleeds into the fable he’s weaving for young Alexandria. And as this story develops, Tarsem shows Alexandria learning in real time about the pain that is present in the world. She snoops on doctors discussing Roy, but the fable she’s being told starts becoming darker the longer it goes on. She does all she can to convince Roy that it should play out differently (sometimes to very comical effect), but eventually, that grief becomes too powerful. The developments of Roy’s story begin greatly distressing Alexandria, and after so much of her delightfully fun antics and line-readings, her sadness rips a hole in your heart. And it’s here, in these moments where Alexandria does all she can to change Roy’s mind about how the story should play out, that The Fall stakes its claim as a beautiful rumination on both story-telling in the fictional sense, but also in the story of our own lives.
Both Alexandria and Roy are physically stuck in place. How they are both handling their situation is what varies. Roy doesn’t have the ability to do much, but he does have the ability to weave intricate tales for Alexandria. And this escape is essential for her. We see her charming demeanor slowly taking over the story, injecting humor and happiness in sequences that would traditionally be a dark turning point in a fairytale. But eventually, Roy can no longer take it. His anger and his sadness begin to warp the tale too much, and Alexandria’s protests fall on deaf ears. In real time, and with painfully bleak direction, Tarsem boldly forces this tale into much darker territory. Despite being centered around such intense emotions of pain and sadness, The Fall up until this point has been able to remain optimistic. But what happens when those depressing thoughts become too much to bear? These feelings take over not just personal happiness, but it steals the joy of those around us. If we don’t fight, our stories become full of pain. And the stories of our loved ones become warped by that very same notion. Whether Roy likes it or not, he and Alexandria have formed a connection. And at that point, it becomes essential to create a happy ending for ourselves rather than give into those darker emotions. Despite how we may be feeling at any given moment, it’s important to look around at the stories and the people surrounding our life, and seek out the inherent beauty in all of it. We may fall many times in life. But we must always get up.
The Fall celebrated the North American premiere of its new 4K restoration at the 2024 edition of Fantastic Fest. The film will be released on MUBI and in select theaters starting September 27.
