Review

Review Date: 1-June-08
Spoiler Rating: Low
Juju Judgment: Juicy

The Fall (2008)

The Fall may look like an artsy-fartsy film whose late-May release puts it in stark contrast with the season's more popular fare. The fact that the filmmaker goes by a single name, Tarsem, certainly contributes to its apparent pretentiousness. Yet for all its dramatic visuals, somber soundtrack, and reference to a biblical watershed, The Fall is a simple movie offering escape, effortless thrills, and warm fuzzies. It resembles a summer blockbuster in this respect, easy to sink into if not entirely exceptional.

The film comprises a story within a story, and, surprisingly, the less fantastic one hooked me more. In a Los Angeles hospital circa 1915, a sweet immigrant girl named Alexandria (Catinca Untaru, a find) patters about making friends and watching the world go by while recuperating from a broken arm. One day she meets a fellow patient, Roy (the resplendent Lee Pace), who has also injured himself in a tumble but under very different circumstances. The child's ears catch snippets about him from the talk around her, but she does not understand what it means that he tried to commit suicide over a broken heart. She only knows that he is handsome and friendly and willing to tell her a story. And so the saga begins.

The increasingly heart-wrenching details of Roy and Alexandria's friendship form a marvelous fable, potent in its moral and the chemistry and allure of the actors. That is not to say that Roy's wanderings through make-believe lack their own charm, however. Here the appeal rests on style above substance as a sextet of exotic heroes pursues a quest for vengeance across a series of spectacular landscapes. Tarsem could book a vacation for me any day. To name a few of his locations, there is Hadrian's villa, the Hagia Sofia (I think), a South Seas island, a majestic desert, the Taj Mahal, and several other Indian palaces worthy of drool. His heroes (including Pace again) are clad in sumptuous costumes, fitted out with snorting steeds, and ranged against a legion of black-robed villains. Their conversation and actions do not count for much beyond a pale reflection of the crisis in Roy's soul, and that is just fine. This part of the movie is a flight of fancy which, as sometimes happens in real life, embellishes one's experience of the truth behind it.

Copyright © 2008 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.