The Fall
Directed by Tarsem Singh
- adventure
- fantasy
- drama
The story
In a hospital on the outskirts of 1920s Los Angeles, an injured stuntman begins to tell a fellow patient, a little girl with a broken arm, a fantastic story about 5 mythical heroes. Thanks to his fractured state of mind and her vivid imagination, the line between fiction and reality starts to blur as the tale advances.
What it’s like
Saturated, painterly frames carry most of the weight. Hospital corridors in 1920s Los Angeles are bleached, dusty and sepia-muted, and when the story spills into fantasy it blooms across sun-struck deserts, crumbling monasteries and dune seas in deep reds, cobalt skies and burnished gold. Wide shots and symmetrical tableaux hold for a long time, and the camera drifts with a slow, dreamlike patience. Sound is sparse on the ward, with machinery hums and distant voices, while a soft orchestral score swells during the storytelling passages. The vibe is melancholic and wondrous, a feverish fable with gentle humour sitting over a sad undertow. The pacing is unhurried, as a damaged man and a small, imaginative girl trade invention for comfort and slowly draw closer while the boundary between fantasy and reality frays. Intensity is moderate: the tale includes sword fights, executions and a bandit's cruelty, stylised rather than gory, and the hospital frame touches on a suicide attempt, morphine dependence and despair. It suits a rainy afternoon or a slow evening alone, for people who want visual extravagance with an emotional core rather than fast plot.
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