The Fall

This was a bit of a sleeper hit for me. I ran across the trailer on Apple.com and fell in love with the visual style. It was a beautiful and imaginative story full of fantasy and emotion. If you haven’t seen it, you should.

The story takes place in the 20’s, the era of silent film. In a hospital in Southern California lies a young stunt man who paralyzed himself performing a stunt falling from a bridge in order to impress his girlfriend who had left him for another co-star. Depressed and alone, Roy Walker wants nothing but to die. Enter Alexandria, a young immigrant who broke her arm falling in the orchard where she and her family works. She stumbles into his recovery room which he shares with two other men. Roy devises a plan to befriend the child, but only to trick her into acquiring enough morphine to do himself in.

So Roy begins to tell her a story of 5 men seeking revenge on Governor Odious who has wronged each man grievously. An Indian, an Ex-slave, an Italian explosives expert, Charles Darwin along with his pet monkey and the Masked Bandit who is the leader of the band. After they meet on the island they were banished to, they devise their plan to take down Odious.

The story plays out through Alexandria’s imagination, placing the people she knows into the roles and the stunt man is our heroic bandit. As Roy weaves his story to Alexandria, she is pulled into the story herself, however in real life, Roy is tricking her into scoring pills from the pharmacy and steal the medication from his hospital mate.

It is a beautiful story within a story, bringing these two people who “fell” together. Roy is lost in life and Alexandria finds the part of him that needs to live. So visually stunning and engaging, I felt as though I was brought into the fable as well.