Tarsem Singh’s first feature since The Cell is set to cruise into theaters at last. The Fall first had its premiere in 2006 at the Toronto Film Festival, but for whatever reason, hasn’t secured US distribution until now. Roadside Attractions is set to do just that this Spring. I wasn’t a huge fan of The Cell, but what it lacked in plausibility it possessed in vivid, colorful style.
The film is based loosely on a 1981 Bulgarian film called Yo Ho Ho, written by Valeri Petrov, and is about a bedridden, suicidal man who tells a young girl (a fellow patient in a hospital) fantastic stories in order to help him get the drugs he needs to off himself. The tales are vivid, adventurous and colorful, and they draw upon people in the real world around them. The new script is by Dan Gilroy with an assist by Nicol Soultanakis and Singh himself.
Check out the trailer below. It looks like another great storyteller film in the vein of The Princess Bride, or even Pan’s Labyrinth. It’s hard to get a sense of how good the film will be and the question remains whether Singh can keep the visuals from overwhelming the characters the way they did in The Cell, but there are some really great images in there. And as a bonus, the trailer makes extensive use of that marvelous, dirge-like Second Movement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony.
The Fall: imdb, official site
