The Fall vs The Cell

Back in 1991, I was fascinated, confused and a bit frightened by a short film called Losing My Religion. It would be wrong to call the filmed interpretation of REM’s song a music video; something else is happening. It’s not the greatest video ever made, but it’s perhaps the most distinct, and in any era, on any channel you might find playing videos (good luck with that, those of you living in the current era), Losing My Religion looks unlike any other thing out there. It’s like a Renaissance painting come to life, or like The Last Temptation of Christ interpreted by, well, REM. It’s really something, and was directed by a man named Tarsem, who went on to direct nothing.

That is, until 2000, when he directed The Cell, in which Jennifer Lopez plays a…cop? Psychologist? Therapist? She’s a therapist, I think. Anyway, the cops have her suit up in these Gary Oldman-as-Vlad suits of armor and enter the mind of a killer…LITERALLY. It’s pretty silly, but fun, what with Lopez, Vince Vaughn and Vincent D’Onofrio on board, taking everything quite seriously. The Cell’s main calling card is the art direction, in which Tarsem invents the ugly, fantastic interior of a killer’s psyche. Okay, invents is perhaps a strong word, since much of The Cell cribs not only Tarsem’s previous work for REM, but also videos directed by Mark Romanek for Madonna and Nine Inch Nails. Hey, maybe that’s the kind of stuff serial killers watch. I’m not accusing Tarsem of plagiarizing these works, I’m just saying that with such a fresh start in the 1990s, I was expecting an entirely new experience while watching his first feature (nothing much original happens in Mark Romanek’s first feature—One Hour Photo--either, for that matter). The Cell is basically The Silence of the Lambs filtered through heavy metal album covers. It’s a trip, but not the mind-blower you may feel you’ve signed on for.

For that, Tarsem made us wait yet another decade. The Fall is his newest movie, and it’s a keeper. The Fall tells the story of Roy (Lee Pace), a stuntman in California in the 1920s. Roy has a near-fatal accident on the set of a movie, and winds up paralyzed and in one of those movie clinics in which everything outside is palm-treed and lovely, and everything inside is cots and mosquito nets, and like, those giant metal syringes and shock therapy paddles and scary jarred fetuses. It’s not a fun place. Roy is visited by Alexandria, a young migrant worker wearing a cast on her shoulder after a fall in an orange grove. Alexandria is played by Catinka Untaru, in one of the great child performances on film. I have no idea what the future holds for Untaru. It’s kind of difficult to imagine her continuing a film career, because so little of what she does in The Fall appears to be acting. She’s so natural at just being a kid, and she happens to be adorable, so it’s easy to overlook what she may or may not be doing. I think Untaru’s performance is as genuine as anyone else’s in the film (Pace is also excellent. How great would it be if the guy from Pushing Daisies was nominated for an Oscar?).

Alexandria and Roy strike up a friendship, based primarily on a story he’s telling her. The story, which continues day to day, involves a mission by a former slave, a masked bandit, an explosives expert, a mystic, an Indian, and of course, Charles Darwin and his pet monkey. As Roy weaves his story, we see it on screen, filtered through the imagination of Alexandria. She’s confused by some of it (she only knows one kind of Indian, for example), but constructs a jaw-dropping world of orange deserts, neon blue oceans, endless Escher-esque mazes, and hands-down the best costumes I’ve seen in a movie in years.

But, the storytelling comes with a bargain. Roy needs morphine, so he can sleep, and he wants Alexandria to get it for him. If she wants to hear the story, she has to cooperate. We know right away what Roy’s actual plans are for the morphine, and by the time Alexandria figures it out, The Fall has gone from being a sweet fantasy about an unlikely friendship into something deeper, darker and more revealing. It’s everything Losing My Religion was, everything The Cell could have been, everything I want in a movie every time I go, and hardly ever get. The Fall is good. If, by the end, it’s gotten a little cute for its own good, well, it has a one-named director who only works once a decade. Maybe he was feeling cute in 2003 or something. You expect me to know what’s going on in Tarsem’s brain?

It’s my understanding that The Fall was directed on Tarsem’s own dime, and filmed around the world. It certainly looks like it. Every location looks authentic, and even the most violent moments appear to have been done the old-fashioned way, meaning without computer-trickery. It’s appropriate, I suppose, given that the movie is about an old-time stuntman. On the other hand, when one character is shot in the back by so many arrows that when he falls they support him like a bed, you might, as I did, tilt you head a bit, wondering if you’re seeing what you think you’re seeing. Like me, you’ve probably seen too many movies. Trust me, you’ve got time for one more.

The Fall: A-

The Cell: C+