Falling for THE FALL

[randy_byers]

I'm beginning to see a pattern here. Two years ago it was Tideland, last year it was Across the Universe, and this year it's The Fall: movies that got mediocre-to-scathing reviews that I ended up loving. Not that it always works this way. Brothers Grimm and Hulk would be examples of movies where I agreed with the consensus opinion that they weren't very good until I saw them again on DVD and realized, hey, they're actually pretty good! There's some kind of lesson here about the herdlike behavior of movie critics, or maybe just that we should always take reviews with a grain of salt. This one included, no less.

The Fall is the first movie I've seen twice in the theater this year. First time was two weeks ago, then I saw it again last night with holyoutlaw. It was even better the second time around. The connection it may share with Tideland and Across the Universe is that it is an utterly idiosyncratic and eccentric and personal vision, very messy and busy and full of dolls and puppets. After the first viewing, I described The Fall as "Julie Taymor does The Princess Bride," in fact. It is set, in the framing story, in Los Angeles "once upon a time". It is the early days of the film industry, in the silent era. A stunt man has been injured in a fall, and a young immigrant girl has been injured in another fall, while picking oranges. They meet in the hosptial, and he tells her a story about a group of pirates, no, bandits (because she doesn't like pirate stories), who seek revenge against the evil Governor Odious. The movie weaves between the framing story and this story within, which becomes contested territory between the injured story-teller and his injured audience. He wants something from her, and she wants something from him. In the end, he gets something from her he didn't know he was looking for.

It is a visually stunning movie. The production design is gorgeous, the colors eye-popping, and the settings (mostly natural, even when urban) are awesome. It was filmed all over the world: South Africa, India, China, Bali, Fiji, Egypt, the UK, Eastern Europe, etc. -- everywhere, it would seem, but Los Angeles. It's about lies that tell the truth. It's about the malleability of story. It's about the many confusions of the world: elephants that sound like whales; Indians and American Indians; Indians played by Romanians speaking Romanian; reefs that look like butterflies; love that looks like hatred. It's about the sheer fantasy that is Hollywood, which makes all the world a stage and then jumbles the props. It's an art film about the need for hackneyed stories with pratfalls and happy endings. It's an ironic postmodern tribute to the redeeming power of a child's love. It's a celebration of the techniques of early film: crazy stunts and in-camera special effects, the simple magic of optical illusions and perspective shifts. It's a children's adventure movie about despair, drug addiction, and suicide.

I love this movie. See also kdotdammit's impassioned deconstruction, with stills that give a sense of the brilliant visual design of the film.

Update: Ha ha ha! Reading Glenn Kenny's piece on the new DVD of Busby Berkeley's The Gang's All Here (which I have on order), I find this: 'In another essay, “As In A Wood,” reproduced in Paul Hammond’s invaluable collection The Shadow and Its Shadow: Surrealist Writings on the Cinema, Breton recalls of his flaneur-esque forays into the cinemas of Paris, “…[W]hat we valued most in [the cinema], to the point of taking no interest in anything else, was its power to disorient.”' Exactly! The Fall asks over and over, "Where in the world?!"

Comments

[kdotdammit.livejournal.com]

I keep forgetting that I wanted to tell you how GREAT these lines are that you wrote:

It's about the sheer fantasy that is Hollywood, which makes all the world a stage and then jumbles the props. It's an art film about the need for hackneyed stories with pratfalls and happy endings. It's an ironic postmodern tribute to the redeeming power of a child's love. It's a celebration of the techniques of early film: crazy stunts and in-camera special effects, the simple magic of optical illusions and perspective shifts. It's a children's adventure movie about despair, drug addiction, and suicide.

I wish I could see the movie again, but it left Tucson after two weeks.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'm looking forward to seeing it again on DVD, although it was great to see it on the big screen a couple times. I was surprised at how long it lasted in the theaters here. In fact, I see that it's still playing in two, count 'em, two different theaters in Seattle!

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

By the way, considering your recent obsession with Robbe-Grillet, I was wondering if you had heard about the Robbe-Grillet film retrospective at Brooklyn Academy of Music next month. Haven't seen any of those films myself, not even Last Year at Marienbad.