What was the first story that captivated you as a child? That’s where “The Fall” starts.
Director Tarsem Singh‘s 2006 fantasy drama tells the story of Alexandria, a little girl who befriends Roy, a 1920s movie stuntman paralyzed in a Los Angeles hospital. He begins to tell her a magical story, all the while trying to manipulate her into getting him drugs to help him end his life. The film takes place partly in that sunny hospital and partly in impossible locations where the story of a group of bandits out for revenge leads them to travel the world. Self-financed entirely by Tarsem — as he’s known simply — “The Fall” filmed over the course of several years in more than 20 countries.
But there has always been another dormant story in the tale of “The Fall.” A story of how a dedicated group spent decades embarking on a film production model never attempted before.
Director Tarsem Singh‘s 2006 fantasy drama tells the story of Alexandria, a little girl who befriends Roy, a 1920s movie stuntman paralyzed in a Los Angeles hospital. He begins to tell her a magical story, all the while trying to manipulate her into getting him drugs to help him end his life. The film takes place partly in that sunny hospital and partly in impossible locations where the story of a group of bandits out for revenge leads them to travel the world. Self-financed entirely by Tarsem — as he’s known simply — “The Fall” filmed over the course of several years in more than 20 countries.
But there has always been another dormant story in the tale of “The Fall.” A story of how a dedicated group spent decades embarking on a film production model never attempted before.
- 10/14/2024
- by Leila Jordan
- Indiewire
Lee Pace’s “The Fall” is getting a 4K re-release courtesy of streaming platform Mubi.
The film, which was released in 2006, stars Pace as a hospital patient whose imagination inspires a globe-trotting tale. The official synopsis reads: In Los Angeles circa the 1920s, a little immigrant girl (Catinca Untaru) in a hospital recovering from a fall, strikes up a friendship with a bedridden man (Pace). He captivates her with a whimsical story that removes her far from the hospital doldrums into the exotic landscape of her imagination.
The feature was filmed over 4 years in 20 different international locations. Tarsem Singh, known just as Tarsem, directed the film, which was his sophomore release after 2000’s “The Cell.” He later went on to helm “The Immortals” (2011), “Mirror Mirror” (2014), “Self/less” (2015), and Dear Jassi (2023). Tarsem also directed the 10-part mini-tv series “Emerald City.”
“The Fall” was originally presented by David Fincher and Spike Jonze, with...
The film, which was released in 2006, stars Pace as a hospital patient whose imagination inspires a globe-trotting tale. The official synopsis reads: In Los Angeles circa the 1920s, a little immigrant girl (Catinca Untaru) in a hospital recovering from a fall, strikes up a friendship with a bedridden man (Pace). He captivates her with a whimsical story that removes her far from the hospital doldrums into the exotic landscape of her imagination.
The feature was filmed over 4 years in 20 different international locations. Tarsem Singh, known just as Tarsem, directed the film, which was his sophomore release after 2000’s “The Cell.” He later went on to helm “The Immortals” (2011), “Mirror Mirror” (2014), “Self/less” (2015), and Dear Jassi (2023). Tarsem also directed the 10-part mini-tv series “Emerald City.”
“The Fall” was originally presented by David Fincher and Spike Jonze, with...
- 7/15/2024
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
Exclusive: Arthouse streamer and distributor Mubi is set to re-release Tarsem’s cult 2006 film The Fall in a newly restored 4K version from 27 September 2024 in the US, Canada, Latin America, the UK, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Benelux, Turkey and India. The Match Factory is handling sales for the rest of the world.
The 4K restoration will have its world premiere at this year’s Locarno Film Festival where it will play on the Piazza Grande. Mubi will subsequently stream it on its service.
Set in Los Angeles, circa 1920s, the visually striking movie charts the story of an immigrant girl in a hospital recovering from a fall who strikes up a friendship with a bedridden man. He captivates her with a whimsical story that removes her far from the hospital doldrums into the exotic landscapes of her imagination.
Filmed over four years in 20 different locations across the globe, the movie starred Lee Pace, Catinca Untaru and Justine Waddell. The film was originally presented by David Fincher and Spike Jonze, with a script from Dan Gilroy and Nico Soultanakis.
Reviews were mixed for the film and it failed to ignite at the box office, but its visuals were highly praised and Roger Ebert gave it 4 stars, calling it a singular work: “You might want to see [it] for no other reason than because it exists. There will never be another like it,” he said.
After debuting at Toronto back in 2006, the film became very hard to track down on streaming services and director Tarsem recently expressed hope the feature would soon get a revival.
Tarsem Singh, known as Tarsem, is also known for movies such as The Cell, starring Jennifer Lopez, The Immortals starring Henry Cavill, Mirror Mirror starring Julia Roberts and Self/less with Ryan Reynolds. The filmmaker is also well known for his music videos, including Rem’s Losing My Religion, which won MTV’s Best Video Award. In 2023, he directed his first feature film in Punjabi, Dear Jassi which won the Platform Award at the Toronto International Film Festival.
The 4K restoration will have its world premiere at this year’s Locarno Film Festival where it will play on the Piazza Grande. Mubi will subsequently stream it on its service.
Set in Los Angeles, circa 1920s, the visually striking movie charts the story of an immigrant girl in a hospital recovering from a fall who strikes up a friendship with a bedridden man. He captivates her with a whimsical story that removes her far from the hospital doldrums into the exotic landscapes of her imagination.
Filmed over four years in 20 different locations across the globe, the movie starred Lee Pace, Catinca Untaru and Justine Waddell. The film was originally presented by David Fincher and Spike Jonze, with a script from Dan Gilroy and Nico Soultanakis.
Reviews were mixed for the film and it failed to ignite at the box office, but its visuals were highly praised and Roger Ebert gave it 4 stars, calling it a singular work: “You might want to see [it] for no other reason than because it exists. There will never be another like it,” he said.
After debuting at Toronto back in 2006, the film became very hard to track down on streaming services and director Tarsem recently expressed hope the feature would soon get a revival.
Tarsem Singh, known as Tarsem, is also known for movies such as The Cell, starring Jennifer Lopez, The Immortals starring Henry Cavill, Mirror Mirror starring Julia Roberts and Self/less with Ryan Reynolds. The filmmaker is also well known for his music videos, including Rem’s Losing My Religion, which won MTV’s Best Video Award. In 2023, he directed his first feature film in Punjabi, Dear Jassi which won the Platform Award at the Toronto International Film Festival.
- 7/15/2024
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
I avoided reviewing The Fall after I saw it at the Seattle Film Festival earlier this year. I even avoided saying much about it when I named it one of my favorite movies from the first half of 2008. The reason I have strayed from writing much about it is due to the fact that there isn't a whole lot to say. At least there wasn't. The Fall is a love story as seen through the eyes of a child, told by a man with a broken heart. It's beautifully shot, told, acted and imagined. Director of The Cell, Tarsem Singh, spent 17 years preparing to make the film and once he met 7-year-old Catinca Untaru he knew he finally had his star and she was only going to be this old for so long. It then took another four years to finish while being shot in 18 different countries. Picking up where The Cell left off,...
- 9/8/2008
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Director and co-writer Tarsem's The Fall, the follow-up to the visually resplendent Jennifer Lopez thriller The Cell, is one of the year's best films you probably haven't seen. Filmed in 18 different countries over a four year period, this audaciously constructed and paced gothic fairy tale of friendship and loss is as engrossing as it is wonderful. It is a story of intense drama, stirring action and heartbreaking emotion, all of it stimulated by the actions of a five-year-old child whose limitless curiosities can't help but inspire. Alexandria (Catinca Untaru) is the young daughter of immigrant migrant farmers working the fields in 1915 Los Angeles. After she breaks her arm in a fall during a tragic accident, she finds herself wandering the halls of a secluded hospital looking for things to do. It is here she meets bedridden movie stuntman Roy Walker (Lee Pace), also the victim of a horrific fall...
- 9/2/2008
- by Sara Michelle Fetters
- Rope of Silicon
- #71. The Fall Director: TarsemWriters: Dan Gilroy, Nico Soultanakis and Tarsem Producers: 100% financed by the filmmaker himself. Distributor: Roadside Attractions The Gist: Inspired by a short, Bulgarian film the director saw at a film festival almost a decade ago - this takes place in a hospital where a little girl with a broken collar bone meets a bedridden man who starts telling her a fantastical story which reflects his state of mind. As time goes by fiction and reality start to intertwine in this uplifting epic fantasy. Fact: Tarsem worked on this film in over 20 different countries. See It: The ultimate art-house flick of 2008: if you like his commercials, video work and found The Cell intriguing then make sure to mark your calendars. Release Date/Status?: Roadside Attractions is looking to release the picture in March. ...
- 1/29/2008
- IONCINEMA.com
The Fall
TORONTO -- If any doubt remains about Tarsem Singh's interest in narrative for its own sake, The Fall should put it to rest: The advertising and music video vet wants nothing more from a plot than an excuse to string together luscious images.
Without the star power and genre appeal of his previous film, The Cell, The Fall will be handicapped at the box office. What it does have going for it in commercial terms -- whimsy and an adorable little girl playing the lead -- are offset by Singh's occasional use of unsettlingly graphic gore.
Using sickbed storytelling as a frame for fantasy a la The Princess Bride, The Fall begins in a 1920s Los Angeles hospital, where young Alexandria, daughter of immigrant orange pickers, is recovering from a broken arm. She befriends Roy, a movie stuntman who has been maimed on set and lost his gal to boot. Roy begins spinning a long yarn for Alexandria, hoping to gain her trust so that she'll fetch him enough morphine to kill himself.
The story, as it unfolds in the girl's mind's eye, stars a quartet of heroes out to kill an evil emperor. Clothed by designer Eiko Ishioka (how is it that she has not made more movies?), each member of the team is a bit wilder than Roy's description. Charles Darwin, for instance, wears an enormous coat of red, black, and white fur.
For a few scenes, considerable charm comes from the way Alexandria misunderstands what she hears, colors it with her own experience, and updates it as she gets new information. While Roy is imagining a Native American when he describes one member of the group as an Indian, she envisions a mysterious warrior from India; a vast desert has lush gardens just over the hill when Roy makes a reference to grass.
This is charming, brain teasing, and even holds some promise as a catalyst for examining how we ourselves fill in the gaps of stories we hear. But Tarsem and his screenwriting collaborators aren't able to come up with enough interesting justifications for their sudden shifts, and soon the shape-shifting yarn just feels like lazy storytelling.
Whatever its narrative merits, the mutating tale is a magic tool for Tarsem, letting him hop around the world to use desert dunes, forgotten temples, and vast ruins as settings for his action. If he wants to see what a flaming carriage looks like in an ocean of sand, or to watch an elephant swim, he just writes a couple of lines of dialogue. Visually, the result is enthralling; technically, it must have been hell to make; critically, there's no way to discredit it.
But having a story whose characters and motivations shift so arbitrarily means that viewers have no stake in it emotionally. Those who are so inclined will let their minds wander, asking, "Haven't I seen that image somewhere?" and "Are the Quay Brothers going to sue over the way that hallucination sequence apes their work?"
Others will walk out mildly dissatisfied, but happy that someone was able to bring such astounding images to the big screen. Until Tarsem's advertising clients start to commission full-blown, huge-budget ads for the cinema, a half-baked fairy tale will have to do.
THE FALL
No U.S. Distributor
Absolute Entertainment, Treetop Films
Credits:
Director: Tarsem
Writer: Dan Gilroy, Nico Soultanakis, Tarsem, based on the film Yo Ho Ho by Zaco Heskija
Producer: Tarsem
Executive producers: Ajit Singh, Tommy Turtle
Director of photography: Colin Watkinson
Production designer: Ged Clarke
Costumes: Eiko Ishioka
Music: Krishna Levy
Editor: Robert Duffy.
Cast: Alexandria: Catinca Untaru
Roy Walker: Lee Pace
Evelyn: Justine Waddell
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 118 minutes...
Without the star power and genre appeal of his previous film, The Cell, The Fall will be handicapped at the box office. What it does have going for it in commercial terms -- whimsy and an adorable little girl playing the lead -- are offset by Singh's occasional use of unsettlingly graphic gore.
Using sickbed storytelling as a frame for fantasy a la The Princess Bride, The Fall begins in a 1920s Los Angeles hospital, where young Alexandria, daughter of immigrant orange pickers, is recovering from a broken arm. She befriends Roy, a movie stuntman who has been maimed on set and lost his gal to boot. Roy begins spinning a long yarn for Alexandria, hoping to gain her trust so that she'll fetch him enough morphine to kill himself.
The story, as it unfolds in the girl's mind's eye, stars a quartet of heroes out to kill an evil emperor. Clothed by designer Eiko Ishioka (how is it that she has not made more movies?), each member of the team is a bit wilder than Roy's description. Charles Darwin, for instance, wears an enormous coat of red, black, and white fur.
For a few scenes, considerable charm comes from the way Alexandria misunderstands what she hears, colors it with her own experience, and updates it as she gets new information. While Roy is imagining a Native American when he describes one member of the group as an Indian, she envisions a mysterious warrior from India; a vast desert has lush gardens just over the hill when Roy makes a reference to grass.
This is charming, brain teasing, and even holds some promise as a catalyst for examining how we ourselves fill in the gaps of stories we hear. But Tarsem and his screenwriting collaborators aren't able to come up with enough interesting justifications for their sudden shifts, and soon the shape-shifting yarn just feels like lazy storytelling.
Whatever its narrative merits, the mutating tale is a magic tool for Tarsem, letting him hop around the world to use desert dunes, forgotten temples, and vast ruins as settings for his action. If he wants to see what a flaming carriage looks like in an ocean of sand, or to watch an elephant swim, he just writes a couple of lines of dialogue. Visually, the result is enthralling; technically, it must have been hell to make; critically, there's no way to discredit it.
But having a story whose characters and motivations shift so arbitrarily means that viewers have no stake in it emotionally. Those who are so inclined will let their minds wander, asking, "Haven't I seen that image somewhere?" and "Are the Quay Brothers going to sue over the way that hallucination sequence apes their work?"
Others will walk out mildly dissatisfied, but happy that someone was able to bring such astounding images to the big screen. Until Tarsem's advertising clients start to commission full-blown, huge-budget ads for the cinema, a half-baked fairy tale will have to do.
THE FALL
No U.S. Distributor
Absolute Entertainment, Treetop Films
Credits:
Director: Tarsem
Writer: Dan Gilroy, Nico Soultanakis, Tarsem, based on the film Yo Ho Ho by Zaco Heskija
Producer: Tarsem
Executive producers: Ajit Singh, Tommy Turtle
Director of photography: Colin Watkinson
Production designer: Ged Clarke
Costumes: Eiko Ishioka
Music: Krishna Levy
Editor: Robert Duffy.
Cast: Alexandria: Catinca Untaru
Roy Walker: Lee Pace
Evelyn: Justine Waddell
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 118 minutes...
- 9/12/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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