Review of The Fall (2006) by Sarah E — 25 Jan 2011

Tarsen's The Fall is a gourmet all-you-can-eat-buffet for the senses. It is an absolute pleasure to behold the film. This doesn't come as a surprise to me either. The Cell had me understanding why film is so intoxicating and brilliant as a medium; The Fall is further testament to Tarsen's skills as a director and film's effectiveness as a medium. Here's an artist that completely understands his art, is patient and hard-working, and as a result, produces nothing short of a masterpiece every time he gets behind the camera.

The stage is set in a Los Angeles hospital circa 1915. Alexandria, perhaps five years old, has broken her arm while working in the orange groves. She bides her time by exploring, making mischief, talking with other patients, and collecting items that she likes to fill a cigar box she carries around with her. On one such sojourn around the hospital, Alexandria meets Roy, a stunt man whose injuries have left him paralyzed. He offers her a story, an epic story, in exchange for her company, but it gradually becomes apparent to the viewer that Roy has greater plans for Alexandria in mind. He uses the story as a bribe.

The hospital drama makes up only a small portion of this film though. It is Roy's story - as relayed to the viewer through Alexandria's imagination - that truly deserves reflection here. Five pirates, no, wait, bandits have been banished to an island, and they each intend to kill an evil Governor for his crimes against them. The most mysterious is the black masked bandit, a surrogate, Roy believes, for Alexandria's father, but the young girl only sees this as an invitation to enter the story herself. What follows is a struggle between two narrators, one a man with dark intentions and one a girl with the most loving of hearts.

It is this struggle that makes Tarsen's movie intelligent as well as beautiful. Any filmmaker can create a fantastical world for the camera. Not every storyteller can offer such a brilliant commentary on the nature of authorship and readership. Roy might be responsible for the words that he speaks, but the second they enter Alexandria's ears, they become as much her story as Roy's own. This is made particularly apparent in one of the movie's more dramatic scenes. When Alexandria demands that Roy spare a character from a dark fate, Roy insists that, "It's [his] story," to which Alexandria rightly responds, "It's mine too." Indeed, Roy's story is everyone's story in a way. It's a text that many people, places, thoughts, and feelings, most of which are not Roy's own, helped to create. Who is the author? After watching this film, I have to ask whether or not it matters.