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, Singh takes the idea of beauty on film to a whole new level. From an opening credit sequence that can best be described as movement in still life to a colorful bounty of costumes, scenes and settings, The Fall is as much a fascinating film as it is a piece of art and Blu-ray is the best way to view it.
Listening to either of the commentaries available on the Blu-ray disc (one from Singh and another with star Lee Pace, co-writer Dan Gilroy and co-writer/producer Nico Soultanakis) and watching the hour-long two-part documentary will give you as much insight into the making of this film as you will ever need. The commentaries are more of a tale of the process as Singh talks about all the locations they were kicked out of and the process of filming an island that actually does look like a butterfly. The other track points out similar stories such as Alexander’s army and how drunk they were the night before and the day of filming. Singh’s major focus is on the performance of Untaru and it really is a gem of a performance and it’s interesting to hear it confirmed just how much of the performance is Untaru and how the film was almost made around her from dialogue to the loss and growth of her front teeth.
Also included are a pair of deleted scenes, one of which is an impressive tracking shot using a crane and another with a bit of additional comedy. Finally, the Blu-ray disc comes with an exclusive photo gallery feature that really does nothing for me since DVDs and Blu-rays are about moving pictures not scanning through a bunch of still photos.
Sony’s BD-Live feature continues to annoy me as it takes FOREVER to load and once it does there isn’t anything of interest. All it is is a marketing tool to try and get people to buy more Sony stuff and really shouldn’t be labeled as a “feature” and certainly not a “special” one.
Fortunately, the gimmicky features aren’t the reason you are buying this disc, it’s for the magnificent film and the beauty it presents in its telling. Tarsem Singh is an artist and his bold choices in camera work are a welcome addition to a filmmaking scene that has seemed to be lacking in style and substance in conjunction with story. Singh doesn’t make nearly enough films as The Fall arrived seven years following his first film and I don’t expect another film from him any time soon. So get on this one and if you are up for it, revisit The Cell as well, it isn’t nearly as bad as people made it out to be at the time when society was on J-Lo overload.
