The Fall (film): Difference between revisions

A 2006 fantasy film by Tarsem Singh, based on the 1981 Bulgarian pirate story "Yo Ho Ho". The film took four years to shoot, in 26 locations in over 18 countries, and was funded by [[Being John Malkovich|Spike Jonze]] and [[Fight Club|David Fincher]]. '''The trailer [[Trailers Always Spoil|spoils]] most of its plot twists.'''

 

 

Unable to leave his hospital bed, Roy has a plan: he begins telling Alexandria the most fantastic bandit story ever told. It stars seven heroes -- The Black Bandit, an Italian, an Indian, a Mystic, [[Beethoven Was an Alien Spy|the ex-slave Otta Benga, Charles Darwin]], and Wallace the Monkey -- on a quest of revenge against the evil Governor Odious.

But Roy has barely any idea how to talk to young children. And Alexandria is stubborn, hardly speaks English, and still lives by the laws of her own child logic. The story Roy tells is seen entirely through Alexandria's eyes: every character (and prop) in Roy's story is imagined by Alexandria as someone (or something) she's seen in daily life. And it quickly becomes clear that her life so far has been extremely traumatizing. Her fantasy world is cute at first, but turns [[Darker and Edgier]] as Roy sinks deeper and deeper into depression. Each time Alexandria makes an innocent mistake, Roy punishes her for it by punishing his characters within the tale. Finally, Alexandria decides that the story isn't safe with Roy, and she takes over the narration herself.

 

 

Despite winning a slew of "Best Picture" awards, the film only scored mixed-to-positive reviews.

 

 

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* [[Acting for Two]]: Everyone in the story, sometimes very well disguised.

* [[Anachronism Stew]]: On purpose. Seeing Odious' car is particularly jarring, signifying the story's finale.

** Let's not forget Eiffel Tower.

** Actually, in the [[DVD Commentary]] director Tarsem states that, [[Reality Is Unrealistic|despite what most people thought]], that car was a real model from the era.

* [[Annoying Arrows]]: {{spoiler|The ones that kill Ota Benga barely pierce him.}}

* [[Badass Spaniard]]: Odious. The Black Bandit starts out at this, [[It Makes Sense in Context|until he becomes French.]]

* [[Big No]]: Used as a joke at the start, played very, ''very'' straight at the end.

* [[Bilingual Bonus]]: Catinca Untaru has dialog in her native Romanian.

* [[Cool Mask]]

* {{spoiler|[[Creator Breakdown]]}}: {{spoiler|Roy, at the end of the story, killing nearly all of the characters off.}}

** Kinda...there was some CGI work done to remove railings and bystanders in some shots, and the {{spoiler|butterfly Wallace chases, and the arrows hitting Ota}} have a CGI look to them. Still, the overwhelming majority of the film was done practically, which is still an amazing achievement.

** The on-location shooting alone needs to be emphasized. There's a short montage that features the Great Wall of China for maybe two frames, and it was shot on-location.

* [[Enforced Method Acting]]: [[Pushing Daisies|Lee Pace]] spent 12 weeks of filming in a wheelchair, to convince 7-year-old actress Catinca Untaru that he was crippled (as was his character). He also consistently went by the name of "Roy". For realism's sake, he only told a handful of people on the set that he could walk, and as a result had to be carried around by the crew every day.

** This wasn't as difficult to achieve as it might sound: it was only Pace's second role--and in his first, he played a transgender character--so it was unlikely anyone would recognize him.

* [[Facing the Bullets One-Liner]]: {{spoiler|"Shoot, you animals. They'll pay you well for Darwin's hide."}}

* [[Five-Man Band]]: Trope played to the letter:

** [[Team Pet]]: Wallace the monkey.

** {{spoiler|[[Tagalong Kid]]: Alexandria.}}

* [[The Foreign Subtitle]]: Released in Spain as ''The Fall: El Sueno de Alexandria'' ("The Fall: Alexandria's Dream").

* [[For the Evulz]]: The only motivation of Governor Odious in the fantasy.

* [[Framing Device]]: Exploited to great effect.

** The Indian is clearly Native American by Roy's description but the visual shows him as an undefined Indian royal. The confusion is deliberate. Roy is thinking of an actor he knew while Alexandria is thinking of her friend the orange-picker.

* [[Fractured Fairy Tale]]

* [[He Also Did]]: At the time of ''The Fall'''s release, director Tarsem Singh was well known for directing the award winning 1991 video for [[REM]]'s "Losing My Religion".

** Subverted with Roy's plan to make Alexandria get him morphine, which made him became close to her, which in turn made him {{spoiler|get past his broken heart and forget his suicide wish}}.

* [[Innocent Inaccurate]]: Alexandria's family pretty clearly had to immigrate to the United States because of a pogrom of some sort - Eastern Europe generally not being the friendliest place in the early 20th century - but when Roy tries to find out more, all she says is that "angry people" were responsible.

* [[Mooks]]: Clone after clone after clone of Alexandria's real-life nightmare, the X-ray technician wearing a leather apron, swarming through an M.C. Escher-esque maze (which was not CGI, but filmed at a ''real place'').

* [[Mysterious Waif]]: Lady Evelyn.

* [[Promotion to Parent]]: Alexandria starts calling the Black Bandit "Daddy" after a while. Roy eventually gets mad at her for it.

* [[Public Domain Soundtrack]]: Beethoven's ''Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92, II. Allegretto''. And it is ''[[Crowning Music of Awesome|awesome]]''.

* [[Retcon]]: In-story example: the Masked Bandit was a [[Badass Spaniard]] at first due to Alexandria telling Roy about her father; in fact she imagined him to look like her father. Eventually she asked why he kept speaking in an accent and requested he speak normally. He explained that the Masked Bandit was no longer a Spaniard, but a Frenchman; thus Alexandria imagined him to look like Roy.

* [[Rule of Cool]]

* [[Sleeper Hit]]

* [[Storming the Castle]]

* [[Stuff Blowing Up]]: Well, one of the characters in the story-within-the-story is an explosives and ballistics expert.

* [[The Voiceless]]: The Indian only speaks one or two words during the whole movie. He speaks when {{spoiler|he cuts the rope (killing himself and a handful of the mooks), saying "''Up!''" (according to the subtitles)}}. Ota Benga is almost this.

* [[The World Is Just Awesome]]: Just take in any of the scenery.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Films of the 2000s]]

[[Category:Film]]