Image is everything

Not many of us would have heard of Tarsem. A fewer still would have even seen the first movie he directed - The Cell. I saw the movie after reading the glowing review by Roger Ebert and came away fascinated by a visually stunning movie that had deeper levels than that of a normal psychological thriller.

After a long hiatus he is back with his second movie - The Fall. Roger Ebert spoke to the director and tried to figure out how Tarsem managed to generate all the fantastic images in the movie without any help from computers. Ebert has nothing but praise for the movie and calls it one of the best films of 2008.

Tarsem's "The Fall" is a mad folly, an extravagant visual orgy, a free-fall from reality into uncharted realms. Surely it is one of the wildest indulgences a director has ever granted himself. Tarsem, for two decades a leading director of music videos and TV commercials, spent millions of his own money to finance "The Fall," filmed it for four years in 28 countries and has made a movie that you might want to see for no other reason than because it exists. There will never be another like it.

"The Fall" is so audacious that when Variety calls it a "vanity project," you can only admire the man vain enough to make it. It tells a simple story with vast romantic images so stunning I had to check twice, three times, to be sure the film actually claims to have absolutely no computer-generated imagery. None? What about the Labyrinth of Despair, with no exit? The intersecting walls of zig-zagging staircases? The man who emerges from the burning tree?

What dreams may come

I have previously talked about "The Fall".

I saw the movie (finally) and fell in love with it. The folks I watched it with were not as enamored, but it may have had to a lot to do with the stop-start nature of our viewing and a tendency to judge the movie before it even began.

Much better writers than I have captured the essence of movie. If not for anything else, at least for the visual style of story-telling, this is a must-see. I have not seen a better-looking movie than this, ever. And the music that was used throughout the movie was Beethoven's 7th symphony, 2nd movement (one of my favorite pieces of music).

Here are some other sources of information on "The Fall".

a) The official website of the movie has some still photos worth preserving as screen-savers.

b) Roger Ebert raved about the movie on his website.

... Tarsem made one of the most astonishing films I have ever seen. It is all the more special in this age of computer-generated special effects, because we see things that cannot exist, but our eyes do not lie, and they do exist, yes, they really do.

c) An intrepid blogger Moriarty goes in-depth with Tarsem, the director of the movie, in this no-holds barred interview (yes, there is some salty language in there). His fellow blogger "Capone" conducted a two-part interview. Here's part 1, and part 2 of the interview.

d) If bloggers aren't your cup of tea, here is the Washington Post on Tarsem's long but strange journey to make the movie.

e) Finally, the New York Times weighs in on this astounding movie.

Millions and millions of words

Here's your Kick Your Feet Up And Relax video of the day:

This is the opening sequence of "The Fall" by Tarsem, one of the most visually stunning movie I have ever seen. (Click here to see all the different posts I have written about this movie).

The musical piece accompanying the scene is one of my all-time favorites, too - Beethoven's 7th symphony, 2nd movement. I play it at least once a week at work when I need some music to calm me down.

Logically speaking

When the Oscar awards were announced, I could not understand how The Fall was not nominated for visual awards. All the clips I saw of it were breathtaking and Ebert's praise could not have been more fullsome. (I had written about it here).

Made by Tarsem (he goes by just one name) it looks like a fantastic movie to watch. Here's a preview of it:



Here's just one scene from the movie. The kid's logic is simple and unanswerable.