This is the first of two (or maybe three) posts – all basically about the movie “The Fall” directed by Tarsem. It is only on rare occasions that I have liked a movie so much, I was prompted to write a review of it. The gist of this particular series of posts is – “The Fall is the awesome-est movie I have seen for quite a while, and is hands down the bext film I have seen this year. Its not just a visually brilliant film, but has a solid script and the acting is absolute quality. It pushes the envelope in so many ways, it is unlikely something like this will ever be done again.”

Everybody has an opinion, and nowhere are opinions more varied than when it comes to films. When you come across a review of a film and the guy writes “bloody brilliant! never done before, will never be done again”, you assume he falls in one of the two categories -

1. Rabid fan of a genre or actor
2. Some “critic”

Now for an example of the former.

Look at the number of people drooling over The Dark Knight. Quite a few of them are a fan of that particular super hero and associated acts, so their bias tends to gloss over the short-comings of the movie. The film is based on an existing format (awesome hero outwits and overpowers villainous villains with his awesomeness). True, the film was made well. Some breath-taking scenes, good sound effects, solid acting, a decent script (except for the end bit), etc. However, it still goes down in history as one of the many super-hero films there are. It was spectacular yet solid. It took an existing genre and did very well with it. It didnt push the envelope, though. It did not innovate in any great way. You see the movie, have a good time, and thats it – once out of the theatre, all thoughts about the movie are out of your system.

Similarly, fans of an actor tend to watch certain movies just for the performance that particular star puts in (or sometimes, just to wacth an actress look fabulous in the film). The reason they watch a movie isnt “story sounds interesting” or “from the trailer, it looked like the kind of movie I want to watch” or “good director, good actors” , oh no! Their reason is “that star acts in the movie! awesome! i have to see it and praise it.”

Inherent biases tend to distort the final review to such an extend that the cinematography, the backdrop, progress of events, and even the script and acting are secondary to that one thing such a viewer is looking for in a movie – the actor, the character, the theme, etc.

At the other end of the spectrum, you have the “critics” who usually criticize a normal box-office hit, because its “too commercial” and it “panders to the lowest common denominator” and has “sold its soul to get a thousand more people into theaters”. This is something I myself am guilty of on occasion – “Box office hit? How? It was rubbish! Hmmph! What type of people go watch that movie?” A rant about a particular hindi movie on the previous blog url is proof of this.

Some “critics” however, are more consistent in their criticisms of such box-office hits. They like to point out to the hoi-polloi that a “popular” film is bad and a particular film (which very few saw and nobody really understands) is actually awesome.

Rest assured, despite writing that this is a bloody brilliant film, the reviewer in question (that would be me) claims to belong to neither category here. This first post is just a “what” of the series of posts. The next post will be on “why” I am putting this little-known film by a little-known director and little-known actors on such a high pedestal.

The plot of said film (classed as adventure/drama/fantasy) -

In a hospital on the outskirts of 1920s Los Angeles, an injured stuntman (Pace) begins to tell a fellow patient, a little girl with a broken arm (Untaru), a fantastical story about 5 mythical heroes. Thanks to his fractured state of mind and her vivid imagination, the line between fiction and reality starts to blur as the tale advances

A gallery of all the images in this post (plus some frames of the movie – almost like each frame has been coloured one by one)