The Spill Movie Community
If it's crap ... We'll tell you
Follow Spill!
Latest Activity
Aaron posted a status"Hey, I didn't know Korey was on an episode of Baggage. Go to GSN right now and tell me that guy doesn't look like Korey."
Marz posted a status"Ok Xbox Rumors Requires Kinect Requires Internet Connection Blocking Used games... ILL BE GOD DAMN IT ALL TURNED OUT TO BE TRUE!!!"
Theredknite posted a photo
Yea, @melissadunn87 knows prt.1
Just a drawing of a friend of mine. Someone else is going to color it is the reason why it's a part…
Photos
Music
Cyrus Presents Grant's Review of "The Fall"
Hey everybody, please welcome a newcomer to our little DVD reviewing club, Grant. If you're a follower of The League of Extremely Ordinary Gentlemen, you may have heard him pop in on there a few times (he is, after all, an official member of the "League of Support Heroes."
Anyways, this here's his first review "officially" presented by Spill. I got to see this movie in the theater with Tarsem there and even with finding the director to be quite an entertaining speaker, I still felt pretty much the same way Grant does. Anyhow, listen to Grant's "officially" suggested music (don't ask me) and kick back and read his review of "The Fall."
Planned for over 17 years....
Shot in 18 different countries....
Filmed over a span of 4 years....
Sound like a passion project to you?
"The Fall", directed by Tarsem Singh, is a visual masterpiece with a playful and exciting plot, but definitely one you have seen before. Tarsem Singh is most well known for his 2000 directorial debut "The Cell", featuring J-Lo, Vince Vaughn, and an uber-creepy Vincent D'Onofrio. While visually dazzling, that movie didn't have the greatest box office success and Tarsem faded back into the minor leagues, directing music videos and television commercials again (See the award winning REM video "Losing My Religion" or his famous "Shaolin Soccer"-esque Nike commercial). Dissatisfied with the new movie opportunities rolling in, he took it upon himself to make his own film. Tarsem took gigs shooting commercials in various foreign countries as a means of both helping fund his sophomore film, "The Fall", and transporting his crew to various exotic locations to get every shot.
"The Fall" is based on the screenplay of the 1981 Belgian film "Yo Ho Ho" written by Valeri Petrov. Set in a hospital in 1920's Los Angeles, the film follows Roy (Lee Pace from "Pushing Daisies"), an injured Hollywood stuntman who crosses paths with an young girl with a broken arm (Catinca Untaru) and proceeds to tell her a fantastical story in exchange for stolen pain killers. The tale Roy weaves unites five heroes, an Indian avenging his wife, an Italian explosives expert, a masked bandit, an ex-slave named Ota Benga, and Charles Darwin, in a quest to kill their common enemy, the evil Governor Odious.
Interesting sidenote: Ota Benga was the name of an African pygmy brought to New York in 1906 and placed in a human zoo exhibit at the Bronx Zoo alongside an orangutan. The horribly racist exhibit was intended to promote the concept of human evolution, a concept developed by none other than Charles Darwin.
Visually, this film is absolutely stunning. Like "The Cell" before it, Tarsem carries on his strong aesthetic, although this film is thankfully more restrained and not such a Matthew Barney-esque surreal mind-fuck. His vibrant color palette and vivid contrasts make each shot a work of art. The locations in which he filmed are breathtaking. Tarsem truly had a unique vision and listening to him speak about his artistic process in the directors commentary is actually quite fascinating.
The story itself isn't really anything new. Childhood escapism in fact seems to be a current trend in recent movies, contrasting the magical world from a child's imagination with the painful realities of life. Think "Pan's Labyrinth", "The Chronicles of Narnia", and "Bridge to Terabithia". Tarsem even went so far as to base the visual tableaux of Roy's tale on the interpretations that the young actress Untaru had of the story. This explains why, when Roy tells the tale of the Indian with obvious references to a Native American, an eastern Indian is depicted. While the portion of the film set in reality works well, Tarsem fails to make the viewer care about the characters in Roy's t ale, which is a considerable portion of the movie. The disconnect the viewer may have with the five heroes is amplified by the odd juxtaposition of childish fantasy and intense violent action, a reflection of the director's struggle to balance his vision with the vision of Untaru.
The movie plays out in a predictable fashion. While the story Roy tells the little girl is muddled at times and relatively lackluster, the chemistry between Pace and Untaru is excellent. This brings us to Tarsem's 'great ruse'. Determined to achieve verisimilitude and avoid another Jake Lloyd incident, Tarsem deceived his entire crew into believing Pace was an actual paraplegic so that Catinca would treat him as such. While filming for 7 1/2 weeks, Pace had help getting into and out of a wheelchair and laid in bed, pretending the whole time he was indeed handicapped. While admittedly messed up, the results were undeniably successful. Catinca also did not speak English when she was cast in the role, creating a slight language-barrier resulting in some great ad-libbed dialogue from both actors (Tarsem shoots his films script-less and storyboard-less). Two accompanying behind-the-scenes featurettes on the DVD go into this deceit briefly, but overall the featurettes are quite boring.
The other special features, aside from the audio commentary are equally lame. There are a whopping two deleted scenes included on the DVD. Two?!? Really?!? For a film that was shot over four years with such elaborate sets, that's all they give us? On top of that, the deleted scenes aren't even interesting.
Overall, "The Fall" DVD is a beautiful epic film. A nice bit of eye-candy with a decent story.
My rating: 3.5/5
CLICK HERE TO BUY "THE FALL"
Views: 716
Comment
-
Comment by M. Veron Charette III on July 10, 2010 at 12:03pm -
I thought this was a beautifull movie, Tarsem, trully understands cinimatography, on a level few directors do, however the story line was a little weak, and I could have written something much better! I liked the actors, and probebly would have chosen someone else to play the child, (perhaps someone whose diction you could understand, perhaps a brittish girl, eh!)Lee Pace is a fantastic, actor, charismatic, and understated, in quietly powerful way. I thought the other actors were all excellent, from a visual and asthetic sense. I would have written a better story, although I liked the part about the charactor of Roy wanting to commit suicide over the girl. I would have had him find love with the nurse, or at least the promise of it.
-
Comment by Scrivs on January 20, 2009 at 10:30am -
This was one of my top tens for sure. So beautiful!
-
Comment by Devin on September 4, 2008 at 7:20pm -
I seriously fucking LOVED this movie. Why the hell did so many critics pan this beautiful gem?
-
Comment by G-Nap on September 3, 2008 at 6:24pm -
I loved this film so much!!! I'd give it a low full price for the not-so-great story. I'm excited to see the 'making of' featurettes!!!
-
Comment by magicka on September 3, 2008 at 9:22am -
Wow. This looks really, really cool.
-
Comment by izzy89 on September 3, 2008 at 5:59am -
I actually got to see The Fall just a few days ago, but had been trying to find it for ages. It was amazing, the colors, the locations all absolutely stunning, but your right the store was a tad drab in comparison. But i think the artfulness of the cinematography made it the difference for me.
-
Comment by Beau on September 3, 2008 at 3:06am -
Nice review, brother. Right out of the park.
And nice use of the 7th by the way-such a great piece.
-
Comment by Leon on September 3, 2008 at 12:35am
-
You felt about this EXACTLY as I did. I'm glad that the extras contain all the information the director told us about in the Q&A of the screening I went to.
-
Comment by Bijan on September 3, 2008 at 12:29am -
I saw this in theaters and could not believe that they did not use CGI in this movie. The visual aspect of this movie is out of this world. I do agree that the story was weak. The little girl is adorable though.
-
Comment by Grant on September 3, 2008 at 12:08am -
Don't get me wrong, Velderia, I don't believe Darwin is to blame for the fate of Ota Benga. I merely found their connection, loose as it may be, to be interesting, and I found it curious that fictional representations of those characters were used in this movie.
The music included in the review is the main theme from the movie (Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92, II. Allegretto). I felt it complimented the film well and thought it might be nice to listen to while reading the review.
© 2013 Created by The Spill Crew.
You need to be a member of The Spill Movie Community to add comments!
Join The Spill Movie Community