The Fall (2006)

The Fall (2006) is a cinematic masterpiece and an obvious choice out of many favorites. Not only is it entertaining on a surface level, but the visuals are unlike any movie I've ever seen. Roy Walker (Lee Pace), an injured former stuntman befriends Alexandria (Catinca Untaru), a young girl with a broken arm in a 1920's Los Angeles hospital. Roy spins a fantasy tale involving five heroes: an Indian warrior (Jeetu Verma), an ex-slave (Marcus Wesley), an Italian explosives expert (Robin Smith), Charles Darwin (Leo Bill), his pet monkey Wallace, and a mysterious masked bandit. The line between reality and fiction becomes blurred as Alexandria's vivid imagination brings Roy's characters to life.

The introduction is a beautiful but somewhat confusing series of frames which play a key role in the foreshadowing of the film. The first shot fades in to a medium close-up of a head bursting through water in slow-motion. The black and white staging is the first thing the audience witnesses which immediately sends us back in time. The head surfaces slowly, and as the man spits, Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 begins to play. The title appears left of center in a cloud of fog and a man dressed in a cowboy outfit runs on-screen waving his hat in front of the disappearing letters, then leaves the shot. We now begin to feel a sense urgency, however this was already inferred with the swimmer's gasp for air and events following will share this tone.

The next few shots have the subject matter positioned on opposite sides for each consecutive frame This creates a back-and-fourth effect that mirrors the confusion the viewer is feeling. For instance, there is focus on a feather moving in the upper-right side of the screen and, in the following frame, we see a man dressed as an Indian smoking on the left. After that, a man yelling appears on the right. Now we start to see that there was a recent event and the slow-motion style allows us to witness each individual reaction. We also know that it was unexpected and tragic because of the faces and actions of both the smoker and the shouting man.

Another object of importance appears and draws attention because of the unusual circumstance.
A prosthetic leg with an arrow sticking out sits in running water in the upper right part of the shot. This is a repeat of the feather frame which intends to give familiarity of the layout, but leaves the viewer puzzled with the subject of the shot. The water is shallower and is moving more quickly which could represent the building tension the audience is meant to feel.

The following four shots are all short and show us very dramatic and unique actions taking place in different locations. We don't yet have full spatial awareness of any of these seemingly unconnected pieces. Instead, we are given glimpses of the locations and of what everyone is doing. These short takes actually give us a lot of information even though it may not seem like it. The yelling man, head bursting from the water and prosthetic leg shots shown at the beginning of the intro are given context which teases the audience with clues of the four events occurring in each shot. Later on in the movie, we find out that the barking dog actually turns up in Roy Walker's story as Charles the monkey. The director is constantly throwing the viewer into fragmented snapshots which further underlines the chaos that is occurring.

A long-shot pan shifts our focus to a train stopped on the tracks. This is the first long shot in the introduction and distant framing is used more frequently as the scene progresses. The train's steam  now appears to be the smoke we saw the cowboy run through during the title reveal. The audience can see more of the picture but not enough to fully explain the events that are occurring.

The man on the lower left corner of the frame gets new focus as he calls for a rope. He is the same man that was shouting in two previous shots from several different angles. It's as if time has stood still as the perspective shifts over and over so that the emotions of individuals install dread and disbelief in the audience.

As the rope is thrown down to two men in the water, we get our first good distance shot with the shadow of a bridge and the train strategically cutting through almost the entire screen. Naturally, we get to see the full view of the train, bridge and water in a more distant perspective frame with the camera tilting to follow the rope.

The next several shots move back and forth between the train, the ground and the water. The smoker and the two men in the water both wave to people on the bridge who have a pulley system rigged up (undoubtedly the thrown rope). We see a close-up of a dead black horse being lifted from the water; a contrast to the close-up of a live white horse shown earlier. It has become obvious that all the commotion was caused by lifting the horse and moving the train. We can now form connections between the train, smoker and swimmers. As a final pan of the entire scene comes into view, the audience gets an "Ah-ha" moment as well as satisfaction for piecing together all of the parts. What many may not realize is that we were given hints from the start. Nothing the director does is without careful thought and planning.

 

Juxtaposition is prevalent throughout the whole introduction. Calming classical music and slow-motion filming are in direct contrast to the rushed feel of the scene. The monochromatic style is opposite to the vivid color in the rest of the movie. The medium and close shot frames that jump around quickly in the beginning grow longer and more distant so that details are noticed before the scene comes into full view.

The very unique thing about the way the director introduces the movie is that we get foreshadowing from a memory instead of a jump to future events. The audience actually has a visual introduction to many of the heroic characters (the Indian warrior, Italian pyrotechnic expert and Charles the monkey) and objects incorporated later on in the story. Although it may seem like a very random start, many little details have been planted in our mind to be revisited later. This credit introduction sequence is not revisited or explained in full until the last 15-20 minutes of the movie. This is deliberately done to put the audience in the shoes of the girl, Alexandria. We are left ignorant as we go along with Roy's journey in the mind of a little girl. This kind of story-telling method was also used in Pan's Labyrinth (2006). In both movies, dark adult themes are masked by childish wonder and imagination. However, The Fall (2006) ties the beginning and ending very nicely and displays events with bright color unlike the muteed rich earthy tones and ambiguous end of Pan's Labyrinth (2006). It is interesting to see the parallels between directing styles while also being able to identify differences in the individual filming personalities.


The introduction's design and composition give us the artistic spin of a typical old Western movie in the form of a crisp slow-motion sequence. The audience experiences a very personal interaction with the scene while also feeling the nostalgia associated with black and white films. Director Tarsem Singh shoots everything on location, but the close-up frames strategically mask the scenery and force us to pay attention to tiny details. Although we see an open nature landscape in the last few shots, the whole setting is completely hidden with only trace amounts of overlay for us to picture
the whole scene. This powerful open framing technique makes the audience want to follow characters and objects off-screen. Instead of a panoramic view of the world our characters are in, we are forced to piece things together and that is exactly the intent. The use of on location shooting is seen repeatedly throughout the rest of the movie. There are almost no scenes shot on set during strictly story-mode portions of the film. The claustrophobic enclosed rooms of the hospital are completely broken by the limitless world the heroes experience in Alexandria's story depiction. It leaves the audience in awe as everyone tries to take in the multitude of baffling locations visited throughout the film.

I love how the mise-en-scène is set up because the audience does not have the distraction of color, sound or speed. It is an unusual technique, but Tarsem Singh is known for his artistic methods. His desire for enhancement of a scene utilizing or depriving a scene of color and diegetic sound or narration makes his movies intriguing and surprising. It is the overwhelming visuals and detail oriented filming in this movie that bring everything to life. Specifically, the world Roy Walker woven into the imaginary world created by Alexandria. The dreary, depressing mindset of Roy is almost missed due to the happy liveliness of the girl's misguided interpretation of his story and motives. This is not only Roy's story; it is almost exclusively Alexandria's and the viewer's version that dominates the screen.

Works Cited

Barsam, Richard Meran., Dave Monahan, and Peter Simon. Looking at Movies: An Introduction to Film. 4th ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2013. Print. 

The Fall. Dir. Tarsem Singh. Perf. Lee Pace, Catinca Untaru, Justine Waddell. Roadside Attractions, 2006. DVD.

The Fall Opening Scene HD. 2012. YouTube Video. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXGIgO_ynN>.

Kines, Mark T. "The Fall." Cassava Films. Cassava Films, 2016. Web. 26 Feb. 2016. <http://cassavafilms.com/reviews/fall>.

Pan's Labyrinth. Dir. Guillermo D. Toro. Perf. Ivana Baquero, Sergi López, Maribel Verdú. Picturehouse, 2006. DVD.  

"Review: The Fall (2006)." Fandango Groovers Movie Blog. Wordpress, 3 June 2010. Web. 2 Feb. 2016. <https://fandangogroovers.wordpress.com/2010/06/03/review-the-fall-2006/>.

Wyatt, Melissa. "Answering the Critics of Tarsem Singh’s “The Fall” (Part 1)." Melissa's Other Blog. Tumblr, 5 July 2015. Web. 26 Feb. 2016. <http://othermelissawyatt.tumblr.com/post/90910220526/answering-the-critics-of-tarsem-singhs-the-fall>.