If you have read my Influenced - Films post, you know films are my go-to inspiration source. I recently started working on a new book project. I was/am very excited about it but I found myself at loss with colour palette. The story is set mainly in imaginary situations so basically it could be any colours. “Sky is the limit” is not always a good thing. So, I googled “film colour palettes” to look for inspirations. Then, by chance, I stumbled into The Fall. I remembered I had been blown away by the masterpiece by Tarsem Singh, which is now considered as a cult film, back in 2006 but then completely forgot about it (it’s been 18 years). So, I watched it again. OMG, I couldn’t believe I had forgotten about this incredible film! Then, I thought I had to share this with you, not just because of the amazing use of colours, but also its themes - celebration of human creativity and the power of storytelling.
The story is pretty simple - in 1920s Los Angeles, a little girl, Alexandria, is recovering from a broken arm in the hospital and she befriends Roy Walker (played by Lee Pace from Pushing Daisies), a stuntman who was paralysed by doing a dangerous stunt (and depressed because his girlfriend had ditched him for the leading actor they were working with). To pass the time, Roy tells Alexandria a fantastic tale of heroes, myths, and villains on a desert island.
Visual Masterpiece
Let me start with how stunning this film is. I mean STUNNING. From the beginning to the end, it’s a visual treat. The black and white, slow-mo opening, accompanied by Beethoven’s Symphony No 7, reminds me of equally captivating and enigmatic opening of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The film has two parallel story lines. The real world (where Alexandria and Roy inhabit) has the sun-kissed, period look with a hint of Pan’s Labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro. Then, there is the epic story told by Roy but visualised through Alexandria’s imagination.
The story within the story follows five men (the masked bandit, the Indian, the ex-slave, the explosive expert and Charles Darwin) seeking justice against an evil Governor, Odious. Contrary to the “real world”, bright, vibrant colours of every hue dominate the fantasy world, reflecting Alexandria’s vivid imagination. Our five unlikely heroes in primary colours stand out against sandy backgrounds. That they remind me of Power Rangers might not be a coincident (but my guess Singh had more Ran by Akira Kurosawa in mind).
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The costumes designed by Japanese costume designer, Eiko Ishioka (who won an Academy Award for Best Costume Design for Bram Stoker's Dracula in 1992), are not just beautiful but also playful, packed with witty references. I love the way their costumes are a huge part of the imaginary characters, like in comic books.
Talking of characters, the setting of the fantasy world is also a character in its own right. Unlike Singh’s earlier film, The Cell (with J-Lo) where all backgrounds were staged / CGI-generated, The Fall was filmed across over 28 countries, on location in some of the most stunning natural and archaeological sites from world history. These unbelievable yet real locations were stitched together to created an illusion of the imaginary desert city. You wouldn’t believe some of the locations are real and man-made. The film is a celebration of human creativity.
The Power of Storytelling
There’s always three incarnations of a story: the story that is being told, the listener’s interpretation and the version the listener retells in the future.
—Tarsem Singh, in interview with Benjamin Crossley-Marra of Ioncinema.com
The heart of the film is the unlikely relationship between the suicidal movie stuntman and the immigrant child. I don’t want to spoil it so I just say they remind me of my favourite short story of all time, A Perfect Day for Bananafish by J.D. Salinger (a depressed young man’s heartbreaking encounter with innocence of a girl).
The Fall is, like Cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe Tornatore 1988), ultimately a love letter to filmmaking and the power of storytelling. The film examines the complex relationship between the storyteller (Roy) and the listener (Alexandria). He initiates the story but she makes it as her own by giving the fantasy characters the faces of the people she sees around her in her real life, a bit like in The Wizard of Oz. For example, the ominous doctor wearing a X-Ray protective suit Alexandria sees at the hospital becomes the villainous henchmen in her imagination. Isn’t it how children try to make sense of the world or their emotions?
The arthouse look of the film might put off the average filmgoers, but the story is actually quite straightforward/mainstream and funny too. There are many cheeky, boundary-breaking moments when the two storylines (“reality” and “fantasy”) interact with each other. Alexandria often interrupts Roy in the middle of the fantasy story as children do and it affects his storytelling. For example, the masked bandit speaks with very heavy Spanish accent until Alexandria points out that he speaks funny and the character starts speaking differently in the middle of the scene. She often asserts herself in the story too. She starts as a passive listener but as the story unfolds she becomes more active in the storytelling and at one point she tells him it’s her story too.
I think the main theme of the film is “Why do we tell stories?” and the answer is to understand, to process and to coop with the reality. And we often get stuck in certain stories we tell ourselves in the process. As things go downhill for Roy, so does the story he tells to Alexandria. She doesn’t like how the story goes and teaches him that the stories we tell ourselves can be changed and the endings can be rewritten.
Lastly, I’d like to add that the performance of Catinca Untaru, who plays Alexandria, is the most natural/authentic child acting I’ve ever seen. (Tarsem spent about six years looking for the right child, knowing he wanted a genuine kind of response.)
it is a film of heartbreaking phantasms and childlike joys, looking at the human need for storytelling and escapism in the face of an often unbearably harsh and unromantic reality.
- Christina Newland, Little White Lies
I can’t believe the film didn’t receive the recognition it deserved when it came out. (Whereas Christopher Nolan’s Batman film The Dark Knight was released in more than four-thousand theatres, The Fall was released in a little more than one-hundred theatres and unreleased in the UK and US until 2008.) The Fall has so many layers (for example, there is a scene where Alexandria tries to wake Roy up by kissing him, which makes you think she might get the idea from a fairy tale she might have heard before) and packed with symbolism but I won’t go into that. I just say it’s just a masterpiece. I don’t know if I use this film as a reference for my new book project, but I’m sure this will inspire my future books in one way or another. I hope you get to see this film (available on Amazon Prime) and you get to feel the creative buzz and love for storytelling I get from this film.
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This sounds like a wonderful film, I’d love to watch it. Thankyou for such a thoughtful and interesting post!
Such an interesting post. I’ve never heard of this film and really want to watch it. The cinematography looks amazing!