The Fall
Every
year all these cinematically critical individuals create these lists of their
favourite films of the years. For the
most part I don’t really relate to these lists.
You see, 2008 kinda represents a
record-breaking year for my journey in cinematic appreciation seeing as it’s
the first time I saw more than 10 movies during the year of their release. I’m getting older and am sober more often,
and therefore making it to the cinema more often.
But
you can understand why I have trouble listening to somebody who lists their top
ten films of a year and finding it meaningful when I won’t even see ten movies
in a year. I probably only saw 20 new
movies this year so a top ten and bottom ten would actually account for everything
I saw. Some of these assholes even go on
for top 30 lists, at which point I think their lists probably don’t even have
meaning to other film critics. Fuck,
even two out of five Best Picture nominees at the Academy Awards seem like
filler to me.
So
you can see why I didn’t give much of a shit about seeing this movie which I
just saw called The Fall. It was
always like #7 or some shit on everybody’s top ten list, and like I said, you
start seeing filler once you go past top three and past top five it’s usually
just mentioning shit you saw to retain your status as a movie buff or so that
you can throw in some shit from different genres to show off your breadth.
But
this is a really fucking amazing movie.
Every shot is startlingly beautiful.
It’s rare that I enjoy something on such a purely aesthetic level that
isn’t tits, but damn you Tarsem, you found a
way. I’ll admit some of the stuff in the
first half was blatantly plagiarized from Baraka. But I kinda
rationalized it in that this movie is about a guy telling a fairytale story on
the fly and he would sample in stuff he’d seen in National Geographic magazines
and kinda mish mash
cultures together. By the way, if you
haven’t seen Baraka you should check it out if you’re interested in
seeing where various Mortal Kombat characters and
American presidents get their name.
The
whole thing is like a modern Jorodowsky movie, but
not. It’s got the same band of
mismatched heroes on a loose quest formula as The Holy Mountain, and
lots of the same genre spoofings as El Topo. Plus endless startling visuals and inventive sets. But I didn’t feel like the point of this
movie was to freak me out. I think this
director guy, named Tarsem, wants me to think he’s a
genius, whereas Jorodowsky wanted me to know he was a
maniac. The result is something more
like Pan’s Labyrinth: visuals that are drugs in a story that isn’t. Plus you’ve got that whole reality and
fairytale worlds meeting halfway thing.
I
also think this Tarsem guy has pulled a Darren Aronofsky with this movie.
He followed up a movie about gruesome imagery with one with beautiful
imagery. I didn’t really like Tarsem’s ugly movie, The Cell, it had really strong
visuals, and like this, it took place half in reality and half in fantasy. But I thought the reality half of The Cell
was pretty weak; he gets it a lot stronger this time.
I’ll
admit that sometimes this film is so fucking well shot that it makes some of
the emotional stuff come across a bit dryer than if it hadn’t been so
meticulously lit and framed. But it’s
leaps and bounds ahead of The Cell in emotional impact for me. There also aren’t any actors in this that I
recognize, which makes the universe created here more absolute and there’s none
of those credibility issues of the Jayness of
Lo. However the guy playing Luigi looks
a helluva lot like 1980s Randy Quaid. I know Randy Quaid
was in Brokeback Mountain and all, and getting me to take him seriously
in that movie was a feet enough, but casting a Randy Quadi
lookalike you go right back to square one and I’m thinking National
Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.
Thankfully Luigi is a humorous character in The Fall.
I
don’t want to say whether I feel this is better or worse than Pan’s
Labyrinth. I’ll just say this movie
deserves be getting tortured in the stable next to Pan’s Labyrinth. And that’s a complement mixed with a
reference, so even you hipster kids will understand me. For a more meaningful statement I’ll say that
on my list of top 300 films of 2008, this is a #7 that feels more like a #4.2.
If
you fancy looking at some gorgeous shit, check this out.
If you liked this, here are some
other semi-related film writings:
Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain
If you missed this
cinematic jem, find out what you missed!
The film that
will alienate all your friends and family. Guaranteed.
Here’s my big budget trainwreck attempt.
It’s kinda
swords ‘n sandals meets fantasy versus reality.