During my stay in Santa Barbara, my mother showed me Indian director Tarsem’s beautiful film: the Fall. It’s a stunningly visual piece set part in 1920′s Los Angeles and part in a fantasy world. In it, an adorable young Croatian girl named Alexandria meets a movie stuntman named Roy. Both are hospitalized: Alexandria with a broken arm from falling from a latter while picking oranges, and Roy with paralyzed legs from taking a horse off of a bridge into a lake while shooting a movie. Roy agrees to tell Alexandria a story if she’ll do some favors for him, and the audience is whisked off to a fantasy world in which Roy’s fractured state of mind drives the plot and Alexandria’s vivid imagination fills in the details.
Falling is major theme in the movie, not just in the literal sense but also in the sense of falling from grace, or falling in love.
The scenery is amazing, as the film has scenes shot in around 20 different countries. The costuming and cinematography were beautiful as well. And thanks to the film’s score, I can’t get the second movement of Beethoven’s Symphony no.7 out of my head. I highly recommend this film.
