The Fall (2006 film)

The Fall
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Tarsem Singh
Written by	Dan Gilroy Nico Soultanakis Tarsem Singh
Produced by	Ajit Singh Tommy Turtle Tarsem Singh
Starring	Lee Pace Catinca Untaru Justine Waddell
Cinematography	Colin Watkinson
Edited by	Robert Duffy Spot Welders
Music by	Krishna Levy
Release dates	Toronto Film Festival 9 September 2006 United States 30 May 2008 United Kingdom 3 October 2008
Running time	117 minutes
Countries	Template:FilmIndia Template:FilmUK Template:FilmUS
Language	English
Box office	$3,199,759

The Fall is a Template:Fy film by Tarsem Singh, starring Lee Pace, Catinca Untaru, and Justine Waddell. It is based on the screenplay of the 1981 Bulgarian film Yo Ho Ho by Valeri Petrov. The film earned over $3 million worldwide and was met with mixed reviews. The film was released to theaters in Template:Fy. It should not be confused with another 2008 release of the same title, a legal drama by John Krueger.

Plot

Roy Walker (Lee Pace), an early 20th century Hollywood stuntman, lands in the hospital after performing a dangerous stunt to impress his girlfriend. Bedridden, distraught, and suicidal after losing her to the star of the film, he befriends fellow patient Alexandria (Catinca Untaru), a young immigrant girl with a broken arm. He enchants her with a fantastical tale about five heroes: an Indian, an ex-slave named Otta Benga (see Ota Benga), an Italian explosives expert called Luigi, a highly fictionalized version of Charles Darwin accompanied by a monkey sidekick named Wallace (after Alfred Russel Wallace), and a masked bandit that resembles a toreador. An evil Governor Odious has committed an offense against each of the five, and they all seek revenge. The Indian's beautiful wife was kidnapped by Odious and killed herself; Otta Benga was enslaved by Odious; Luigi was exiled because of the power of his bombs; Odious sent Darwin and Wallace a rare butterfly, Americana Exotica, dead; and Odious kidnapped, tortured, and hanged the Masked Bandit's brother, the Blue Bandit. They unite, and are joined by a sixth hero, a mystic, who is depicted emerging from a tree trunk. Their story is presented as Alexandria vividly imagines it; for instance, Roy's "Indian" is supposed to be a Native American, but she sees him as an actual resident of the Indian subcontinent, as she has friends among immigrants from India who work alongside her in the orchards of southern California (where her injury occurred as she was picking fruit).

Although Roy develops genuine affection for Alexandria, he also has an ulterior motive: by telling tales and gaining her trust, he tricks her into stealing morphine from the hospital pharmacy so he can attempt suicide.

As the line between fact and fantasy blurs, real-life people begin to populate Roy's fictitious stories and the stories themselves become a more collaborative tale to which Alexandria also contributes. A hospital nurse (Justine Waddell) becomes the center of a romantic feud between Governor Odious and the masked bandit, who turns out to be Roy. Alexandria herself becomes a character in the story; while Roy is the masked bandit in her imaginary version of the story, she is his daughter. Mesmerized by the epic, ever-changing story, Alexandria returns to the pharmacy to pilfer another bottle of morphine for Roy. While climbing on a ladder to reach the pills high on a shelf, she loses her footing and falls, injuring herself.

After surgery (depicted in an expressionistic stop-motion animated sequence by Wolfgang and Christoph Lauenstein, typical of their style), Alexandria is visited by Roy in the recovery room, where he consoles her and confesses his deception. He can now only imagine a grim ending to the tale, and encourages Alexandria to ask someone else to tell it. Alexandria insists on hearing Roy's ending.

Roy reluctantly begins the rest of the story. The heroes die one by one, and it seems that Odious will be triumphant. Alexandria becomes upset, and Roy insists, "It's my story." She declares, "Mine too," and in the end is able to exert some influence on the course of the tale. Not only does she change the tale; she helps Roy overcome his real-life issues.

Once they are fully recovered, Roy returns to work as a stuntman and Alexandria returns to picking fruit with her family in the orange groves. The Fall ends with the showing of a film Roy appeared in (which bears similarities to Roy's tale), and several other films of stuntmen which Alexandria believes all to be Roy.

Cast

The Fall features double-casting reminiscent of The Wizard of Oz (1939 film).

• Catinca Untaru as Alexandria
• Lee Pace as Roy Walker/Black Bandit
• Justine Waddell as Nurse Evelyn/Sister Evelyn
• Daniel Caltagirone as Sinclair/Governor Odious
• Marcus Wesley as Otta Benga/Ice Delivery Man
• Robin Smith as Luigi/One Legged Actor
• Jeetu Verma as Indian/Orange Picker
• Kim Uylenbroek as Doctor/Alexander the Great
• Leo Bill as Charles Darwin/Orderly
• Emil Hostina as Alexandria's Father/Bandit
• Julian Bleach as Mystic/Orange Picker

Release

The Fall premiered at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival. For its theatrical release in 2008, the film was presented by David Fincher and Spike Jonze.

Reception

The film received mixed reviews from critics. As of 14 February 2009, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 61% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 94 reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 64/100, based on 23 reviews. Roger Ebert gave the film 4/4, and wrote, "You might want to see for no other reason than because it exists. There will never be another like it." Nathan Lee of The New York Times, however, wrote that the film "is a genuine labor of love — and a real bore."

The film appeared on a couple critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008. Tasha Robinson of The A.V. Club named it the best film of 2008, Sean Axmaker of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer named it the 6th best film of 2008, and Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Times named it among his top 20 films of 2008.

Production

According to the director's remarks on the DVD release of the film, Tarsem (Singh) largely financed the film with his own funds, determined to make the film according to his own vision, and paid members of the cast and crew on an equal basis rather than in more typical Hollywood fashion.

Tarsem's commentary indicates the film was made over a period of four years and incorporates footage shot in over 20 countries, including India, Indonesia (Bali), Italy, France, Spain, Namibia, China (PRC), and numerous others, a few of which are not listed in the credits. The contemporary South African mental hospital which substitutes as an early 20th century Los Angeles hospital and the principal setting throughout the film remained operational (in a separate wing) during filming, according to the DVD commentaries.

The DVD supplementary features reveal that actor Lee Pace remained in a bed or a wheelchair during the early work with the crew, at the director's suggestion, and thus convinced most of the crew and cast that he was in fact unable to walk (like his film character). The intention, Tarsem and Pace note in comments about the film, was primarily to maximize the realism of the character Roy's physical limitations in the eyes of child actress Catinca Untaru, many of whose lines and reactions as the character Alexandria were unscripted or only loosely scripted, and thus emerged to some extent from young Catinca's spontaneous interactions with Pace's character, Roy. For example, one of the significant plot developments—Alexandria's misinterpreting the letter E as the number 3 in a note written by Roy—was derived from an accidental misreading by the 6-year-old actress during filming, which the director then realized he could adapt into a clever twist in the story.

To further the realism of young Catinca's performance, Tarsem had portions of the hospital scenes between Pace and his young costar filmed through small holes in the hospital bed curtains as a way of maximizing the youngster's spontaneous interactions with Pace despite the presence of the film crew surrounding them.

The film's recurring musical theme is the second movement of Beethoven's 7th Symphony.

Filming locations

• Valkenberg Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa
• Dead Vlei from the Sossusvlei dune in Namib-Naukluft National Park in Namibia
• The labyrinth Jantar Mantar in Jaipur
• Charles Bridge in Prague, Czech Republic
• Butterfly reef, Fiji
• Sumatra Island
• Idemen Islands of India
• Pangong Lake in Ladakh, India
• Buland Darwaza in the palace complex of Fatehpur Sikri, Uttar Pradesh, India
• Agra
• Magnetic Hill in Ladakh, India
• Moonscape near Lamayuru in Ladakh, India
• Bali
• Chand Baori in Abhaneri village in the Indian state of Rajasthan
• Jodhpur, the Blue City in Rajastan
• Umaid Bhawan Palace Lobby, Jodhpur, Rajastan
• Taj Mahal, India
• Capitoline hill, Colosseum, Roma, Italy
• Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey
• First Statue of Liberty at Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris, France

External links

• Official website
• The Fall at AllMovie
• The Fall at IMDb
• The Fall at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Fall at Metacritic
• The Fall at Box Office Mojo