BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Prominent Indian director Tarsem Singh (also known as Tarsem) directed his second feature film “The Fall” and it was first premiered at Toronto Film Festival in 2006. Later this movie released world-wide for general audiences in 2008.This movie revolves around a strange ... Read review
Filmed over a period of 4 years in 18 different countries Tarsem's The Fall is an ... more
unforgettable movie experience. In 1920s Los Angeles Alexandria (Catinca Untaru) a 5-year-old girl hospitalized from a fall strikes up an unlikely friendship with Roy...
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Despite his status as indie's scabrous saint, Mark E. Smith is still too full of violent ... more
life to put on a pedestal. Impervious to public acclaim or dismay, Britain's perennial musical outsider is like an antiquarian northern hawk preaching on matters profane like an impious pope. And from the string-suffused skiffle of opener "Cyber Insekt" which buries Smith's ravaged intonations deep into the mix (and counters it with disharmonious female backing vocals), it's clear that this is classic Fall--discordant, spiky, rancid and rocking like a bunch of reprobates. On "W.B.", Smith adopts the tone of another British heretic, spewing William Blake's fire and brimstone visions of Albion's salvation. "Octo Realm/Ketamine Sun" finds him scoffing at the modern dictionary of hip and comparing people to "towers of Adidas crap". On "Serum" he is backed by scattershot beats, swaggering electronics, an eerie guitar melody and a perpetual bass rumble like the flatulence of God. Despite the trance-like tin pot percussion behind it, the title track is more like a curse than a mantra, leading into "Pumpkin Soup And Mashed Potatoes" impressions of a Mancunian Sinatra swilling gin-soaked love songs to pique his appetite. Inimitable, unflappable and now Unutterable, The Fall clearly remain in a constant state of enlightened irritation. --Chris Campion
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Science Fiction - Director: Hiroyuki Yamaga - Original Language: Japanese - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Ayako Kawasumi, Fujiko Takimoto
Production Year: 2007 - Science Fiction - Director: Francis Lawrence - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Alice Braga, Charlie Tahan, Dash Mihok, Will Smith, Salli Richardson, Willow Smith
Advantages: Brilliant story-line, superb acting by Lee Pace and Catinca Untaru,amazing Cinematography. Disadvantages: Some disturbing fighting scenes.
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The story of this movie loosely based on a Bulgarian movie made in 1981 named “Yo Ho Ho”. Though, Tarsem Singh, Dan Gilroy and Nico Soultanakis re-wrote and modified the script in order to have a modern and glossy on-screen presentation.Tarsem is a very talented and innovative director. He has directed some brilliant music videos and commercials for big companies before directing feature films. He directed the famous “Losing my Religion—R.E.M” ... ...He also directed the famous and classy Pepsi commercial “We will rock you”.
Tarsem’s first feature film “the Cell” did not receive well by audience and movie critics. Though, this movie was praised for its unique story-line and outstanding visual effects. He directed his second feature film named “The Fall” and it took him almost four years to complete this movie.
Prominent Indian director Tarsem Singh (also known as Tarsem) directed his second feature film “The Fall” and it was first premiered at Toronto Film Festival in 2006. Later this movie released world-wide for general audiences in 2008.This movie revolves around a strange but meaningful relationship between a five year old injured girl and a frustrated young movie-stuntman in a hospital.
The story of this movie loosely based on a Bulgarian movie made in 1981 named “Yo Ho Ho”. Though, Tarsem Singh, Dan Gilroy and Nico Soultanakis re-wrote and modified the script in order to have a modern and glossy on-screen presentation.Tarsem is a very talented and innovative director. He has directed some brilliant music videos and commercials for big companies before directing feature films. He directed the famous “Losing my Religion—R.E.M” music video, which gained world-wide popularity and won numerous awards. He also directed the famous and classy Pepsi commercial “We will rock you”.
Tarsem’s first feature film “the Cell” did not receive well by audience and movie critics. Though, this movie was praised for its unique story-line and outstanding visual effects. He directed his second feature film named “The Fall” and it took him almost four years to complete this movie.
MAIN CHARACTERS
Catinca Untaru plays the role of Alexandria (A five year old curious girl broke her hand and admitted in hospital)
Lee Pace plays the role of Roy Walker/Black Bandit (A movie stunt-man also admitted in hospital after an accident and later befriends with Alexandria)
Justine Waddell plays the role of Nurse Evelyn/Sister Evelyn (A nurse who works in the same hospital and takes care of Alexandria.)
PLOT SYNOPSIS
This movie opens in a Los-Angeles hospital, where a five year old immigrant girl, Alexandria is admitted for her recent injury. She got hurt while she was picking fruits in nearer orchards. She is very bubbly and curious by nature, and roams around the hospital.
One morning, Alexandria writes a little note to Sister Evelyn (She is the caretaker of the children ward in the hospital and likes Alexandria) and throws it to her, but it goes to a different room, where a badly injured Hollywood-stunt-man Roy was admitted. Roy tried to impress the heroine of the movie, and jumped of the train-bridge with a horse. He got hurt badly and admitted in the hospital.
Alexandria finds her note in the hands of Roy, and starts talking to him. Roy starts telling a fabulous, fictional and vivid story to impress that little Alexandria. This story revolves around the real life characters around them. Slowly, Alexandria enters in to this beautiful epic story and starts controlling the characters. Though, Roy likes Alexandria, but he has a hidden motive too. He wants her to bring him some drugs so he can commit suicide.
So the story tells us, how Roy finishes the story off and controls Alexandria’s thoughts. It also tells us, how Alexandria able to change the fate of fictional characters of Roy’s Story. It also tells us, how they grow a mutual understanding and meaningful friendship between them. It is a fantastic movie with outstanding visual effects and highly engaging story-line. I really enjoyed watching it.
MY PERSONAL THOUGHT
Tarsem is a highly talented director and he surely knows how to portray a wildest free-spirit dream in cinema-screen. This movie is an outstanding presentation of beautiful visual effects along with unique story-line and some superb performances by leading characters. The major part of the story is fictional, a fable story told by Roy to impress the five year old girl Alexandria. He tells the story in such a magnificent and graphical way that, Alexandria can easily imagine and feel the characters of the story and slowly gets involve in this story. Roy takes all the story characters from real life around them and mostly from the hospital. Alexandria already knows them, so it becomes easier for her to imagine the scenes and sequences of Roy’s story. Though Roy is a complete failure and mentally disturbed in real life, but he has this amazing ability to tell stories in such a wonderful way that listeners can easily feel that it is real and he/she is part of it.
~Character Analysis~
Alexandria is an immigrant five year old girl came in California, after angry people burned her house and killed her father. She, her younger sister and mother picks fruits in local orchards. One day, Alexandria fell while she was picking up fruits and injured herself. She admits into this hospital, where she meets with Roy.Alexandria is curious and kind by nature. She likes to experience different things in life. She is young and intelligent. She is very friendly and intuitive. It takes a hard-work for Roy to fool her. Director Tarsem presented the character of Alexandria on screen beautifully and most of all very believable to the audience.
Romanian born incredibly talented young actress Catinca Untaru is the right choice for the character of Alexandria. Catinca is smart, lively and flexible in her character. She has this amazing and very honest facial expression that can easily touches viewer’s heart. She can easily adopt with the given circumstances and act accordingly. She faced a great deal of troubles and problems to get the part of Alexandria. She competed against thousand of other child actress and won this part.
Roy is another title character of this movie. He is a Hollywood stuntman and injured himself while trying to impress his girl-friend. He jumped off the train bridge and broke his back-bone and leg. Now he is completely bedridden, injured and mentally disturbed. He has this dangerous suicidal tendency and always looking for an opportunity to commit suicide. He is stubborn, constantly suffers from inferiority complex. He always thinks that nobody cares for him. Everybody neglects him and to get everyone’s attention he does silly and stupid things.
Alexandria meets Roy in the same hospital. Though, she does not like Roy at first. But Roy starts telling her an amazingly fantastic but totally fictional story in such a believable way which is really vivid and fascinating. Alexandria really likes his story and slowly but surely starts liking Roy. She starts stealing medicines for Roy from hospital’s dispensary. Here we can see that, five year old Alexandria misses her father very much. When she meets Roy, and gets undivided attention and affection from him, she considers him as a father-figure in her life. On the other hand, Roy has a hidden motive behind being befriend with Alexandria, but later he also starts liking her. He feels for her. Both of them grow a meaningful and true friendship and this is the prime attraction of this movie in my personal opinion.
~Loneliness and Friendship~
Here in this movie, both of the title characters are very lonely. Roy looks for a friend, who truly cares about him and listens to his thoughts and views on different things. He loves a girl from his movie-set and jumps off the train-bridge just to impress her, to get her attention. Instead he lost his job and becomes a laughing stock amongst his co-workers. He is now completely heart-broken and becomes suicidal. He looks for different way to commit suicide. He always suffers from anxiety and inferiority complex and has this firm believe that only death can give him peace. Then he meets with this wonderful and kind-hearted young girl Alexandria. She is really charming and friendly by nature. She cares for Roy and listens to his thoughts, views and tries to console him. Here Director Tarsem has presented this wonderful friendship on –screen in such a beautiful and excellent way that surely touches audience’s heart.
In one scene when Alexandria came to visit Roy the following conversation takes place.
Alexandria : I hope I never get better. Roy : Why ? Alexandria : Because I want to stay here with you.
Here we can see that, Alexandria really feels for Roy and wants to stay close with him. She considers Roy as her best friend and father-like-personality in her life and wants to stay closer with him. Tarsem has presented this wonderful and meaningful relationship on screen in a magnificently.
~A World of Wild and free-spirited Dream~
Roy tells a wild, wonderful and fictional story to impress Alexandria. Tarsem has presented this story in such an exciting and brilliant way that surely deserves a true appreciation. Tarsem has spent a large amount of money to produce this movie and he went to more than twenty locations (in different countries) for shooting this movie. Stunning cinematography, outstanding and superb visual effects and melodious background scores all these qualities make this movie highly enjoyable. This movie largely revolves around Roy’s fictional story. But, Roy does a clever trick here. He takes all the real life characters from the surroundings so it becomes much easier for Alexandria to enjoy the story.AS for example, every day morning, a guy delivers ice to the hospital. Alexandria likes to lick those ices and ice-delivery man tells her not to do it. Later when Roy tells his story to Alexandria, this ice-delivery man becomes one of the main characters of the story named “Otta Benga”. In this way Alexandria feels more connected with the story and she becomes a part of this story. Tarsem has wonderfully presented a wild mixture of fiction and reality in this movie.
~THINGS THAT PLEASED ME~
• Excellent performance by Lee Pace and Catinca Untaru in title characters. • Simply outstanding visual effect and extremely beautiful background scenarios.. • Wonderful Dialogs. • Highly enjoyable and engaging storyline. • Exceptional cinematography by Mr. Colin Watkinson.
~SOME INCONVENIENCES~'
• Some disturbing fighting sequences. • Few hospital scenes are very graphic and distressing.
VIEWERS RECEPTION
Director Tarsem spent a huge amount of money, strong effort and honest dedication to make this movie. He also produced and partly written the script of this movie as well. This movie received mainly positive reaction from both audience and movie-critics. It was also mentioned in “Top ten movies of 2008” in some newspaper and movie critic’s list. Currently it has 8.0/10 rating in IMDB voted by almost 19 thousand viewers.
This movie has a positive rating of 60% in Rotten Tomatoes website. Famous American movie-critic Roger Ebert rated this movie 4/4 and also highly praised its brilliant cinematography and unique story line.
Movie Website: http://www.thefallthemovie.com/ Movie Trailer : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeAyIQ_OT_I IMDB rating: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460791/
~Awards and Nominations~
Though this movie praised and mainly received positively by audiences and critics still it could not manage to win any major awards. It won three awards in total. Romanian child actress Catinca Untaru nominated for Saturn Award for her outstanding performance in the role of Alexandria. Mr. Colin Watkinson also won two awards for Best Cinematography (Austin Film Critics Award and Chicago Film Critics Association Awards).
FINAL THOUGHT AND RECOMMENDATION
To be honest, this movie does not follow the usual trend. It does not have suspenseful story, tense moments and brilliant thrilling sequences. But this movie does have brilliant free-spirited story-line wild, outrageous and breath-taking cinematography. So either you are going to love this movie or you definitely going to dislike it for its unique and unusual storyline. I absolutely loved this movie. Director Tarsem has fulfilled his dream in wild and dramatic way in this movie. It’s a remarkable and extravagant journey of a curious child’s mind (Alexandria) guided by a superb story-teller Roy. I simply enjoyed this movie. It's well worth of the two hours of my life. In fact I have watched this movie twice just to make sure what I just have experienced is real or not. Honestly I would love to watch this movie once again. It’s a splendid and joyous experience for me. I really enjoyed watching this movie so highly recommended.
WHERE CAN WE GET IT
You can get this movie from Amazon and it will cost you only £4.99. Otherwise you can easily rent this movie from any high-street rental store.
Advantages: Thought provoking storyline, excellent acting, and breathtaking locations Disadvantages: None I can think of!
...Subscribing to film channels was the best choice I made, especially when having sleepless nights or when my sister’s kids are around! I needed something to take my mind away, so Fantasy and Science Fiction films are always on the top of my favourite film category. It stimulates the imagination with superfluous actions and changeable stories. One of those films that I will never forget was The Fall (a 2008 production). '''THE FALL''' is one of the ... ...imagination, it’s a part of the growing-up process . . . we all are knowledgeable that a child should have a vivid imagination but what if that child with such glowing and flamboyant thoughts meets up with an artistic young man and their meeting up point was the hospital? They will definitely rule the world!
That is what our story is all about . . . still confused? You should read on '''ONLY''' if you have an open mind and a wild imagination to ...
karimkha 19.08.2009 (21.08.2009)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Fall
Advantages: Fantastic script,visually appealing,Great performances. Disadvantages: None really.A few might not like it though
...you will remember for long. The fall is directed by Tarsem Singh and stars Lee Pace as the main protagonist. Alexandria is a small girl living in a catholic hospital for his fractured arm where she meets an injured stuntman named Roy who agrees to tell her a story of 5 mysterious heroes trapped in an island who are looking to kill Prince Odius. Injured Roy needs morphine from the hospital pharmacy and asks Alexandria to steal it for him if she wants ... ...go to any extent. The film is fascinating to say the least.It does remind you of Pan's Labyrinth(just because of the whole fairy tale meets reality factor,nothing else). As the story proceeds we realise that Roy borrows a lot from reality and the story is actually a blend of both fantasy and reality. From the writing point of view,this is a masterpiece and would not fail to amuse you. This is one of the most visually brilliant films you would come ...
aadnan613 01.11.2009
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Fall
Advantages: great entertainment and eighties action Disadvantages: none really
from the eighties.
Unfortunately?as of now they have only just released series one on DVD, which consists of 23 episodes (the pilot being counted as two episodes), giving a good seventeen plus hours, onto 6 DVDs, of harmless fun and some comical, if a little 'iffy' entertainment.
This series one can be bought from amazon for less than £11.00.
Sadly?The theme tune is actually sung by the star of the show Lee Majors and is not to every ones taste?
* Series one DVD brief plots.
1) Pilot? The Fall Guy (part 1)
2) The fall Guy (part 2)?
When a hit and run driver jumps bail it is up to Colt and Howie to bring the man back to court to face justice? but things are more difficult than first thought.
3) The Meek Shall Inherit Rhonda?
When a computer hacker is ripped of by his wife he hires Colt to find her to get his money ...
Advantages: psychological, michael douglas, social realism, dark humour Disadvantages: depressing
must first make a purchase to be granted change. Fair enough, but eighty five cents for a soda doesn't leave him enough money for the phone call; grabbing a baseball bat from behind the counter, D-FENS proceeds to bash every overpriced item in the place in a fit of rage, then agrees a price of 50 cents for the soda, pays for it, and walks off, with his anger subsided.
As the story unravels we, the audience, are forced to make a distinction between an ordinary man and a deranged psychopath. Mid-way through things are taken to a new, hilarious level when D-FENS pulls a gun on the irritating manager of a fast food restaurant after he refuses him breakfast for being two minutes over the deadline.
Falling Down could quite easily be pigeon holed as a black comedy with its often cartoonishly over the top scenes of violence, but it is its ...
"She was like the water that freezes inside a rock and breaks it apart. It was no more her fault than it is the fault of the water when the rock shatters." ? One Stab, Legends of the Fall
If you ever find yourself with 2 hours and 7 minutes to fill, and want a front seat on the sort of emotional rollercoaster that will leave you weepy and drained, then look no further than Legends of the Fall.
It has all of the elements that are needed for a real epic. Stunning scenery well thought out characters, a story that spans decades, war, death, passion, madness and most of all tonnes of insight into the human condition. If my description alone doesn?t do it for you, well it also won the 1995 Oscar for Cinematography, and was nominated for 8 other awards, so that gives you an idea of quality.
Plot outline
***************
From the 17th ...
Set in Los Angeles in 1915, the story revolves around a five-year-old girl (Catinca Untaru) named Alexandria, who wanders around a hospital after breaking her arm. There she meets bedridden Roy (Lee Pace of PUSHING DAISIES), a Hollywood stuntman who is paralyzed after an ill-fated attempt to impress a woman. Roy beguiles Alexandria with a tale that mirrors his own failed romance but his imagination takes it to new levels. People in the hospital appear in the story a la THE WIZARD OF OZ, but it's a surreal, fantastic epic that enchants Alexandria and convinces her to bring morphine pills to Roy so he can commit suicide.
Release details
Studio(s)
MOMENTUM PICTURES
Languages
Main Language
English
Technical information
Sound
Dolby Digital
Professional reviews
Review
Tarsem's THE FALL is a mad folly, an extravagant visual orgy, a free-fall from reality into uncharted realms. Surely it is one of the wildest indulgences a director has ever granted himself (Chicago Sun-Times, 08/09/2008)
DVD Description
After creating the visually impressive film THE CELL in 2000, director Tarsem Singh dropped his last name to become simply Tarsem. His follow up, THE FALL, is just as beautiful as his previous work and features a stamp of approval from David Fincher and Spike Jonze. Like those celebrated directors, Tarsem got his start in the highly visual medium of music videos, and THE FALL is appropriately one of the most striking films to hit the screen in recent memory. Set in Los Angeles in 1915, the story revolves around a five-year-old girl (Catinca Untaru) named Alexandria, who wanders around a hospital after breaking her arm. There she meets bedridden Roy (Lee Pace of PUSHING DAISIES), a Hollywood stuntman who is paralyzed after an ill-fated attempt to impress a woman. Roy beguiles Alexandria with a tale that mirrors his own failed romance but his imagination takes it to new levels. People in the hospital appear in the story a la THE WIZARD OF OZ, but it's a surreal, fantastic epic that enchants Alexandria and convinces her to bring morphine pills to Roy so he can commit suicide.
Based on the Bulgarian film YO HO HO, THE FALL is an excellent example of a triumph of style over substance. The plot is interesting and the acting is solid--particularly the work from first-time Romanian actress Untaru--but it's hard to pay attention to any of that when Colin Watkinson's cinematography and Ged Clarke's production design are so stunning. Though Tarsem is working in a vein similar to Guillermo del Toro and Terry Gilliam, THE FALL is a uniquely gorgeous work that will impress anyone who values beauty in film.
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