88 Lothian Road
Wed 23 Sept · 18:00
Screening because We've Got A Cinema And We're Not Afraid To Use It ! In The Fall , stunt man Roy and little girl Alexandria are both staying at a hospital. Roy tells Alexandria stories which she imagines very vividly, and that bleed into real life. Inspired by of-the-time news and films Roy has starred in, the stories feature a motley crew of warriors and fighters, and Charles Darwin, all united in their passion to remove an evil ruler from power. It sounds like a simple tale, but the interjections from the real-life hospital and the parallels linking reality and imaginary, blur and confuse. Roy and Alexandria, both in pain and lonely, become linked through the art of storytelling. Visually speaking, it is a beautiful film - clearly a labour of love for director Tarsem, filmed in over 20 different countries over 4 years, and financed almost solely by him too. A huge fan of practical effects, the film hosts a wonderful array of examples of this, including all on-location filming (no green screens at all!). Impressively, Alexandria and Roy's interactions were mostly unscripted too, Catinca (the actress for Alexandria) built the character and was so convinced by the story that she really believed that Lee Pace (Roy) was not able to walk for the majority of their filming together. I watched The Fall for the first time quite recently, and it felt a bit like a fever dream. There are layers to this film, and I was too distracted by the beauty of it to unpick - though I knew I loved the 'stories within stories' element the most. I enjoyed watching this band of brightly dressed weirdos slip around on sand dunes and attempt to fight off various baddies along the way. After watching I spent a while thinking about and researching the film - I thought, how could I never even have heard of a film that was this intriguing until now? It's a shame that The Fall received such initial negative reviews, especially given its passion for the art of filmmaking and storytelling.
Not the same tradition as the lineage above — a genuinely different thread to pull, if you want one.