The Fall

A film about the birth, life and death of a story. The author as a cat and the audience as a mouse. An unusual film by an unusual director who deserves a lot more attention – originality should be appreciated. (15.01.2012)

The fact that Tarsem is ripping himself off might not matter so much, the problem is that the images aren't that cool and don't go to the very core of his visual mannerisms, meaning that they’re just boring. All the strength of the narrative thus revolves around one hospital bed, where a nine-year-old girl whose acting consists of babbling in English, crying, and sniffling. That’s not enough for two hours of runtime, but it is relatively survivable. (24.12.2011)

A joy to behold, but torture to watch. The closing three minutes saves a lot, but Singh can’t hide the fact that he begins to copy himself already in his second movie. It might not be a complete disaster if, third time round, Singh hired a professional screenwriter, so he could concentrate fully on his wonderful images. (21.02.2009)

A perfect composition, fascinating imagination, and love for cinema are the ingredients that Tarsem Singh mixes so artfully here. I would love The Fall for the Los Angeles hospital scenes alone, which are set in the 1920s, because the acting by Lee Pace and Catinca Untaru is something special... Yet the wonderful thing about all this is that this is just the beginning. The epic tale that Roy tells Alexandria is in no way comparable to the narrative of Baron Munchausen. The child's imagination is the key to understanding it. (22.02.2012)

I liked the whole thing better (although it wasn't so much inspired by Dalí, which is again a huge plus for The Fall), probably mainly because it didn't feel so long. The Fall begins literally with a stunning (and best of all) black and white scene underscored by the second movement of Beethoven's “Seventh Symphony", and continues very promisingly, interspersing amazing dream sequences with quite sympathetic hospital episodes, gradually revealing the stuntman's story. The film is not lacking in drama or wit, little Catinca Untaru is half cute and half annoying, Lee Pace reminds me of Nicolas Cage (which I didn't think of even once while watching Pushing Daisies). Before the end, however, the whole thing started to drag on, so before I got to the emotional and impressive finale, I was slightly bored. The positives clearly prevail, but it is not perfect. (21.04.2013)

Tarsem is a phenomenon. The Indian sense of kitsch, color, and perverse stylization can strip away the jewels and graft them onto any culture. Sure, his observations smack a bit of a tourist who has flown around the world in 14 days, seen the highlights of every country, and taken a bunch of pictures, but either way, he manages to inflate it into a plot (or hard to say, there were three people at the writers' booth holding the door and they were remaking a Bulgarian comedy) that won't give you facial muscle spasms. You can grumble that it repeats shots a bit, that in places its an overdone fetish, and a more civil scene wouldn't hurt at all. In any case, it's not Singh's fault, it's yours -) Dramatic, funny, touching, weighty, and light. The final flashback to the stuntmen from the beginnings of the film will take more breath away than the entire film thus far, and the opening title sequence belongs to the golden fund of cinema. If it were up to me, The Fall is a film I would have shot into space in the hope that an alien entity would treat humanity accordingly. FILM! PS: the lead acting duo is great (31.10.2011)

A rather unconventional film bordering on art that stuns with its visual creativity and a very evocative musical component. You might want to call it a kind of heavily unconventional fairy tale, but even that description wouldn't quite do it justice. There is no clear-cut way to characterize this film, films like this don’t just get made. On the one hand, it's truly entrancingly beautiful from an audiovisual perspective, but when you realize the pressure that the little girl is put under (would anyone tell a similar story to their five-year-old?), you can't help but wonder if this "alternating of moods" isn't just a matter of expediency and simple manipulation. However... considering that for his first time Tarsem Singh took my breath right away multiple times (the opening black and white scene is a total massacre), I will in good conscience disregard how slightly "unrefined" the story is, because in the final analysis it's still a pretty damn good and, most importantly, original piece of work. (27.02.2013)