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  Average Rating for Fall, the - 3 out of 5

  
  (based on 1 user reviews)
• Fall, the

  Grant Morrison 10 June 2009

  

  Patience is both a Take That song and an asset you may require when watching this piece of film. If you posses such a discipline then you will be in for a beautiful, beautiful treat. For me isn't so much a piece of film as a piece of art. You know video art - You stare at a video screen and watch people, sorry I apologise, you watch artists do strange things with glass and their body. You can even spend an afternoon watching David Beckham have a sleep. Yes, that is what is passing as art these days, but The Fall has so much more to it than these pretentious examples given. It is clear that director Tarsem Singh loved this stored, cherished it as if it was his own child. Shooting took place over four years; shooting in locations all around the world, the cinematography is just breathtaking. Awe inspiring locations from India to reef's in India that at a glance will make your jaw drop. If you were to take a selection of stills from this movie and hang it upon your walls in whatever habit you graze, you would be greeted by a stunning piece of art whenever you walked into the room. However, where it excels in visuals it lacks ever so slightly in the script department. The dialogue at times results in one placing their index finger firmly between ones gripping teeth. Although it is nowhere near awful or crippling damaging to the film, it would have been a delight if it was more polished.
  
  Guillermo del Toro could be used as the perfect example of using both stunning visuals and intricate dialogue to create masterpieces.
  Pan's Labyrinth, The Devil's Backbone and Cronos were all lavish pieces of work. But they did not rely purely on the visuals; they all had majestic and at times mythical plots that were a joy to listen to. The Fall on the other hand had picture perfect visuals sewn up but was dragged down with a lacking script, a truly great shame, as so much care has been put into this project.
  
  The acting from the majority of the cast was great. The young actress Catinca Untaru was spot on with her portrayal as Alexandria; a curious young girl with a broken arm that draws the story from our male lead - Roy Walker played by Lee Pace no catchphrases included unfortunately. For me, Pace was just ok in his role. He has been nominated in recent times for his portrayal of Ned in the short lived television show Pushing Daisies, so perhaps I was looking for that extra bit more from the actor which never really came through in this performance.
  
  To say whether or not someone should buy this film is a gratingly difficult task. I can see for many that this film will come across as boring and drawn out. And to be honest I must agree with this mass, as the film could have done with being say twenty minutes shorter. However, the other half of my brain is telling me that this film is incredibly unique and deserves to be watched. My parting words of advice would be to give the trailer a good watch. Calculate in your brain whether or not you are prepared to give some time and that little bit of effort into looking past the minor flaws and staring into its beautiful veneer. I did so and was happy with my decision, hopefully a number of others out there choose to do the same...
  
  

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Set in Los Angeles in 1915, the story revolves around a five-year-old girl (Catinca Untaru) named Alexandria, who wanders around a hospital after breaking her arm. There she meets bedridden Roy (Lee Pace of PUSHING DAISIES), a Hollywood stuntman who is paralyzed after an ill-fated attempt to impress a woman. Roy beguiles Alexandria with a tale that mirrors his own failed romance but his imagination takes it to new levels. People in the hospital appear in the story a la THE WIZARD OF OZ, but it's a surreal, fantastic epic that enchants Alexandria and convinces her to bring morphine pills to Roy so he can commit suicide.

Fantasy drama set in 1920s Los Angeles. A little girl called Alexandria (Catinca Untaru) is in hospital with a broken arm when the man in the bed adjacent to hers, injured Hollywood stuntman Roy Walker (Lee Pace), befriends her and begins to tell her a series of vivid, fantastical tales centred around five heroes - an Indian, an ex-slave named Ota Benga, an Italian explosives expert, a masked bandit, and Charles Darwin - all of whom unite to fight a common enemy, Governor Odious. As time goes by, fiction and reality start to intertwine, and the hospital staff begin to appear as characters in Roy's stories.