TARSEM Singh, the di rector of music videos and commercials, takes vanity productions to a whole new level in “The Fall.” It’s basically a Middle Eastern version of “The Princess Bride” with
an assisted-suicide subplot.
The director, who demonstrated his gift for devising stunning images in service of a plot that makes no sense whatsoever with his feature debut “The Cell” (2002) with Jennifer Lopez, devoted the next few years to this strange, self-
financed project between paying gigs.
It was shot in 18 or 28 different countries (depending on which page of the press notes you read) and is “presented” by David Fincher and Spike Jonze.
This is a feast for the eyes and a famine for the brain, which struggles to make sense of the morphine-
fueled fantasies spun out by Roy (the charismatic Lee Pace of “Pushing Daisies”), a paralyzed movie stuntman.
His captive audience in a 1915 Los Angeles hospital is Alexandria (cute Romanian nonprofessional
Catinca Untaru, whose English is often incomprehensible), a pre-teen fellow patient who he hopes will secure drugs to put him out of his misery.
In his constantly morphing – and not much more coherent – spoof of a revenge fantasy, Roy is the masked hero, Alexandria is his daughter, and the rest of the story, in “Wizard of Oz” fashion, is peopled with versions of people hanging around the hospital, like a pretty nurse (Justine Waddell).
Shot on stunning locations in Bali, Fiji, South Africa and Italy, Tarsem offers unforgettable sights like elephants swimming underwater and a city painted entirely in cobalt blue (not a digital effect; the filmmakers gave away buckets of paint to the residents).
In case you’re still tempted to take the kids to the wildly self-indulgent and pretentious “The Fall,” be warned that its R rating is more than justified by its gory violence.
THE FALL
Anyway, it’s different.
Running time: 116 minutes. Rated R (gory violence). At the Empire and the Sunshine.