The Fall

Last Thursday Noelle and I went up to the Aquarius Theater in Palo Alto to see Tarsem Singh's new picture: The Fall. I was quite impressed. It has the same kind of stunning visual imagery he brought to The Cell, but the story was much better written. It's a story inside a story really. During the silent movie era, an injured actor befriends a young girl who's recuperating at the same hospital he's convalescing at. He spins a story about five warriors on a quest to destroy their common enemy, so that he can keep her attention while he's in traction. As you might expect from Tarsem's previous work, the story and the story within the story become dark after a while. I thought it was kind of like Baron Munchausen meets Pan's Labyrinth. Oh, this is the first movie I've ever done a spit take in. During the wedding. [trailer]