Painterly Images and a Naturalistic Performance by a Six-Year-Old
An inventive, one-of-a-kind film featuring architectural wonders, marvelous landscapes and exotic visual images, The Fall (2006) was created by Tarsem, a longtime director of commercials and music videos. Those who think of movies in terms of melodrama, comedy and plot may find the film to be an exercise in frustration. But viewers who enjoy a leisurely day at an art museum and take pleasure in reading literary short stories are likely to be enchanted.
The Fall is set in a drab hospital in Los Angeles, circa 1915. The story centers on Alexandria, a five-year-old child laborer who fell and broke her arm while picking oranges. Alexandria is portrayed by Catinca Untaru, a six-year-old Romanian girl whose English is charmingly idiosyncratic. But the young actress doesn't seem like one of those cute Hollywood or Broadway kids we usually see; instead we get an unaffected, convincing performance.
The movie has only one other key character, Roy Walker (Lee Pace of Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day and TV's Pushing Daisies). Roy is a Hollywood stuntman who has become paralyzed as a result of a fall he took while making a Western. Also, his girlfriend has left him for a movie star, and Roy is so despondent he wants to commit suicide.
Roy and Alexandria meet in the hospital, and the stuntman tells the little girl a tall tale. The movie goes inside her mind, and we see a series of stunning visual images. The tale is a dreamlike fantasy that lacks narrative drive, but it reveals the psychological state of storyteller and listener. As actors, Lee Pace and Catinca Untaru have great chemistry.
DVD Bonus Materials
The DVD provides an excellent feature-length audio commentary by filmmaker Tarsem, who claims he shot The Fall in at least 24 countries. He says he found most of the locations while making Pepsi commercials. The spectacular locations turn out to be mostly in India, including Ladakh, Agra and Jodhpur. A mental institution in Cape Town, South Africa, stood in for the hospital in old Los Angeles.
There's nearly an hour of fairly interesting behind-the-scenes footage on the DVD. Here you can watch Tarsem directing scenes at various locations, and you can see how he works with the child actress. When lead actor Lee Pace, virtually unknown at the time, shows up in Cape Town, he fakes being paralyzed and manages to deceive the cast and crew into believing it for the several weeks of shooting there.
Also on the DVD are two brief deleted scenes that aren't of much interest. In addition, there's a second feature-length audio commentary, this one by Lee Pace, screenwriter/producer Nico Soultanakis and screenwriter Dan Gilroy, but the three commentators mostly duplicate information available elsewhere on the disc.
DVD Details
Below I have listed all the details for the DVD containing The Fall.
Release Date: September 9, 2008
Feature Film Runtime: 1 hour 57 minutes
MPAA Rating: R for Some Violent Images
Widescreen (1.85:1), Color
English 5.1 Dolby Digital
English Subtitles
French Subtitles
Audio Commentary by Director
Audio Commentary by Lead Actor and Two Screenwriters
Deleted Scenes (2 Scenes, Total Runtime = 1 min. 40 sec.)
Behind-the-Scenes Featurette: "Wanderlust" (28 min.)
Behind-the-Scenes Featurette: "Nostalgia" (30 min.)
