The Fall

I first discovered Tarsem Singh's The Fall in 2008 when I briefly became fixated with Pushing Daisies and, more specifically, leading man Lee Pace. Lee was last seen appearing in Marmaduke and later in the year, we'll see him in the next installment of the Twilight series: Breaking Dawn.

That being said, he's still a great actor, as evidenced by this film. The Fall is a story, set in a 1920s LA hospital, about Roy, a stuntman, confined to his bed after an injury suffered on set and the relationship he begins to form with a young girl, Alexandria, also living in the hospital after breaking her arm. Roy begins to tell Alexandria a story about a group of adventurers in another world and Alexandria becomes more and more absorbed by the story, returning daily to hear the new developments.

After a while it becomes clear that Roy has suffered more than his physical injuries and as his mind begins to slip, the story drifts in and out of reality. As Roy starts to twist the story into dangerous territory, it is up to Alexandria to keep Roy alive and save the group of adventurers in Roy's imagination.

The story Roy tells sees five men: an Indian warrior, a former slave, an Italian explosives expert, Charles Darwin and his pet monkey and a masked bandit who are united in a revenge mission against the evil Governor Odious, who has wronged each of the men in their lives. Each man has sworn that Odious will die by their hand.

The Fall was shot in over 20 countries around the world, over a period of four years, financed largely out of Tarsem Singh's own funds. The result is an absolutely beautiful film, one that will have you questioning the fact that there are NO computer-generated effects on show here, each of the locations you see are genuine and some really are breathtaking.

The efforts involved in producing the most colourful, vibrant settings possible have paid off as the environment of our imaginations are suitably recreated in The Fall. Places that look like they could only possibly be real in dreams such as floating temples and huge, beautiful gardens are on show here and with each step the adventurers take, with every frame, is a new, luxurious feast for the eyes.

As is often the case in a visually-focussed, art-conscious film such as this, story and character can be forgotten about. That is not the case in The Fall. Watching Roy toil in his bed as he recounts the story is affecting and it becomes even more so as Alexandria starts to worry for him. The story under the surface of the world-conquering adventurers is incredibly simple and this fact is used to provide uncompromising visuals, uninhibited by plot details, again the stuff of dreams.

In the end, it is a beautiful film, both emotionally and visually. Roger Ebert stated in his review that it should be seen as "there may never be another like it." Considering the film must have cost a huge amount to make and made a return of $3million he is probably right. So give it a look, because it really is lovely. Also, on a sidenote, it features a small role for Shameless's Sean Gilder (aka Paddy Maguire) so if that alone doesn't make you want to see it then you are a lost cause.

9/10

Inception

So I have already done a review for Inception, but just to make sure I felt the same I watched it again last night.

It is a credit to the good body of work that Christopher Nolan has already built up that Inception has gathered the hype that we have seen already. Ordinarily, a film about dream extractors and architects designing within the realms of the subconscious doesn't exactly sound like your standard Summer blockbuster. But such is Nolan's meticulous and loving approach to film, Warner Bros have given him every backing in making Inception the film he wanted to make. They have not been let down.

So the story goes that Cobb, (DiCaprio) the world's greatest extractor, has been tasked with the impossible; Inception. While normally Cobb delves deep into the mind to extract one's deepest secrets and ideas, it has been suggested that if there was enough skill and preparation involved someone could plant an idea in someone's brain and convince them it was their own.

So Cobb sets about putting a team together for the fabled Inception, with the promise that if he completes the job, he can finally go home. So he puts together the components of his team and gets to work, but as the remnants of his past and familiar memories from his subconscious seek to destroy him, can he plant the idea before it's too late?



Inception is not just a good idea, it is a fully realised, perfectly executed film. Every little detail is in place to reinforce something we have already learned, every new element introduced furthers the story, the characters and the mechanics of the dream-layered world. When a train comes thundering down a busy city street, you can rest assured there is a perfectly good reason, in fact you'd probably be annoyed if it didn't.

The dream ideas lend themselves to some excellent narrative devices, such as the fact that the further into dreams you go, the more time seems to have passed. 20 seconds in reality is a day in a dream, in a dream within a dream, well you get the idea. In this sense, the time it takes to push a button, can be the same amount of time it takes to have a fully-realised shoot-out in the snow, while others roam for days in barren wastelands and it is all completely plausible.

It's not all just flash and CGI, what lies underneath is a perfectly crafted, unique and involving film. Though with all the exposition going on, there isn't a huge amount of time dedicated to character development, that is forgiven, particularly when the character who does recieve a bit of time, Cobb, holds our interest right up to the end, while Ariadne (Ellen Page) serves as our man in the field as the audience, sneaking into Cobb's dreams and showing us the details of his past that we would otherwise be unable to see, making him endearing and furthering our involvment in his cause.



Inception will sit in your brain for a long time after the credits roll, I for one had a rather strange dream last night! But it is the open ending that will leave debates raging for years. It is testament to the script that every tiny hole can be explained away and patched right up again, no stone is left unturned and when you consider that at times in this film we are simultaneously shown the deep subconscious mind of four different people in the form of varying locations and circumstances, Nolan has done a fantastic job to keep it all together.

It is definitely not over-complicated considering the subject matter and is instead rewarding viewing, as you invest in the characters, when they decide to go deeper, you can share with them a fleeting feeling of excitement giving way to dread and you feel very much at their side.

A lesser filmmaker could have made this film with no regard for the audience but that is where Nolan's strength lies. He has made a deep, involving, labyrinthine story which is heavy on exposition and high on conversation fodder. You get the feeling as you leave the cinema that Inception will be a film to remember and one we will be talking about for a long time to come.

10/10

Paprika

Okay! Here we are then, 2011 and that false sense of renewed optimism permeates through all of us as it does at the beginning of every year. For me, that means a new attempt at blogging, and an over-reaching attempt at watching films, by my reckoning around 260 films in a year, substantially curbed from last year's ridiculous 365.

My aim this year, to keep things interesting by inviting themes into the forum. "What's a theme?" You might ask. Well I will try to figure that out, I have a few ideas that I will unleash in the coming weeks. But now on to this week where we are dealing with films about dreams.

Dreams provide film-makers a great grounds for exploration as in dreams, the laws of physics can be completely thrown out. Anything can happen in a dream. Inexplicable and nonsensical events can simply be explained away by the fact that "it was all a dream." This can be embraced as a means of delivering off the wall visuals and larger than life characters or as a lazy plot device, designed to block questions. Hopefully this week will provide examples from both camps.

Which brings us to the first film of the week. Paprika is a film that deals with the idea that somewhere in the future, scientists have conceived a device that allows people to get inside the dreams of others and twist them around to disrupt their normal activity.

Sound familiar? There are those on the internet who believe that Christopher Nolan's Inception owes a debt to Satoshi Kon's 2006 sci-fi epic. Though the similarities are, on paper, quite large, Paprika is an entirely different beast.



Though Nolan said he was inspired by seeing Paprika, he could have stopped watching after five minutes and Inception would have turned out the same as it's really only the technology involved here that he has borrowed. But that's enough about that.

Paprika follows a team of scientists trying to recover their technology, which allows them to see into, record and replay dreams, after it has fallen into the wrong hands. As they search, they begin to realise that the culprit is using the device to attack people's minds with their worst nightmares and those of others.

The result is a typically Japanese exploration of Technology vs. Nature. Culminating in some very entertaining final battles between tree-like creatures and child-like robots. What happens in between is utterly bewildering, but very enjoyable.



Paprika does a great job of recreating the environment of dreams. When we follow troubled detective, Toshimi, through his recurring dream, we see distorted images from his real-life coupled with bizarre looking characters completely removed from the reality we have established in the film.

But this is another of the film's strengths. The reality we are provided in the film is often integrated seamlessly with the dreams we see, often jarring images that we see come from being immersed in the dreams and the thing that shocks us most is reality and by the end, I can honestly say I had more or less completely lost track of which was which.

It is a film that deals well with the intellectual details of the plot and makes great use of them for its own ecological argument. The characters can be a little flat, but perhaps this is to further enhance the dream-like character of Paprika, elevating her from the boredom that those stuck in reality seem to portray.

And yes, in the end it does struggle to achieve any real emotional pay-off. In terms of visual achievement and, staying true to an increasingly insane plot, Paprika is very successful. The storyline of the detective and his struggle to decipher his dream is the only one that is likely to resonate emotionally, which makes its resolution a little bit disappointing. But the last fifteen minutes that see dreams and reality completely fused together are completely inspired. Again almost Inception-like as we see rooms collapse on themselves, people flying through paintings, turning into sea creatures, etc. The imagination and the colours on show make this film an interesting and memorable entry and chances are you might relive parts of it in your own dreams.

7/10

Dreams

Hello, I am starting a new blog based around certain themes within film.

This week's theme is dreams. And based on some of the films I've been watching I hope Walt got it wrong.