This is a little gem that gives this viewer pause to wonder: Why did it not earn greater response when released? Is it all about marketing, distribution, promotion, big-time names?
With elements of Wizard of Oz, Pan's Labyrinth and many more, set in 1920s Los Angeles, "an injured stuntman begins to tell a fellow patient, a little girl with a broken arm, a fantastical story about 5 mythical heroes." Assuming you have seen it, I'll cut to what I love about this film.
• The paradoxical friendship of a self-absorbed Roy (Lee Pace -where has HE been hiding? Reminds me of Ryan Gosling. Great voice, too. ) and Alexandria, so new to this acting stuff that much in her scenes was ad-libbed. I loved that she was chubby - a real kid! "Are you trying to save my soul?" he asks her as she offers him communion wafer like a biscuit. In the end, she does save his soul. Sometimes our brief encounters in life save us! And her child's wisdom moves me.
• The homage to stuntmen. When have we seen that?
• I love a framed story. This was such fun in making connections between the real people in the hospital and those in the story.
• I love the archetypes: the journey, the quest, the hero, the villain, the young protagonist being tested. The metaphor of "the fall" (forgettable as a title) intrigues me; can be applied in multiple ways throughout the film (I can think of 6).
• As literature teacher I love the overriding theme of the relationship between story/story-teller/reader. Like The Never-Ending Story, we are reminded that we are creating our own story in life. We add or eliminate characters as we see fit, reveal our deepest fears and loves, and are in greater control of our endings than we know. The story-teller can never remove himself from his story.
• Finally, I love the palette of this film. Like What Dreams May Come (to be blogged later), this is a journey of color, texture, landscape, shadows; it is moving art. Like Road to Perdition, every scene captivates me, whether hospital or tribal chant.
Each time I watch this movie I find new details, clues, cross-overs, metaphors. A fun "fall" into fantasy.
Thank you, smart, literate Valerie, for showing me the way. You have pointed out some wonderful features of this most unusual film.
ReplyDeleteThe Fall is as original as a film gets. The setting, morose at first glance, is but a vehicle for our minds to wander. From the hospital, we jump into a fantasy world that is visually stunning and hauntingly weird.
Yes, as you said, Valerie, the mingling of characters in the hospital and the make-believe world is fascinating. Lee Pace and the child actor create a relationship that is touching, in spite of the obvious downside of the older man's pursuit of narcotics. The kid steals the show: she is cute, paunchy, and lovable as the innocent seeker of stories to escape the dreariness of the hospital.
I agree with all your obvservations, Valerie, perhaps most of all your words about the "palette" of this movie. Colors, forms, images...everything mingles in an aesthetic painting where characters, sometimes masked, sometimes revealed, play a game of hide and seek, where personalities, flaws, and needs surface in an ebb and flow of time and space.
My interpretation? I see the entire work as a statement about freedom. The hospital presents a world of confines. The mind creates confines. The suicidal patient is bound by his depression. The little girl is imprisoned in a heartless, sterile world. But in the dream world, there is hope for escape. Nearly every image is laden with symbolism surrounding the quest for liberty.
I will have to revisit this one time and again. There are so many layers to observe. Meanwhile, I toast my colleague for her excellent look at a most singular work of art.
Told ya. (wink!)
ReplyDeleteWonderful response here. Loved your point about freedom/restriction, also masks. Isn't is fascinating that in those days, one was hospitalized for a broken arm?! Not in today's health care system!!
And I have to toast my son, Greg, so insisted I watch it. He's got a good eye, that one.
Hats off to your son Greg, Valerie. Nice film pick! Does he have any other unusual ones for us to consider? I really enjoy the time/space/art/wandering-mind genre. I think of Vanilla Sky, where Cameron Diaz, Penelope Cruise, and Tom what-his-name do a marvelous space/time dance via the car crash motif. Actually, this brings your common time-travel movie to mind...always fascinating to me. I enjoyed The Time Traveler's Wife. Better than the slow-moving book, I think. One of my favorites: Millenium (about time travelers who save people about to die in a plane crash). More on this later. Back to you.
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