Watched: "The Fall"

From the outside, our marriage looks happy and content, but there is one major rift that divides the house of Walkhalter: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban as interpreted by Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón.

I claim that the film was amazing, and Megan claims the film sucked, mainly because Megan focuses on silly things like plots (in a film) or lyrics (in a song), and I'm focus on visuals (in a film) or the instrumentation (in a song).

Megan will argue that I'm wooed easily by pretty visuals, which allows me to overlook holes in the plots of films and often offensive lyrics in songs.

And, as usual, she's right. As such, The Fall is right up my alley. It's all visuals, and going in I was warned that the story itself was lacking a little bit. Story schmory I say!

The visuals were, as expected, stunning. It was like watching a really beautiful, somewhat surreal painting on screen, but I'd like to argue that although the focus was visuals, the plot was not lacking, but intentionally subtle and subdued.

I saw an interview with Baz Luhrman, of Moulin Rouge fame, in which he explained what makes a movie like Singin' In The Rain so good: Minimal plot, maximum execution.

The Fall is exactly that. I could explain the whole film without missing a any details in about ten minutes. But the simplicity merely leaves room for the director to pull out all the proverbial stops and hit a grand slam for every other aspect of the film.

I'm not saying the plot didn't matter, in fact that's part of what attracted me to the film. A young girl with a broken arm at a LA hospital in the 1920s befriends a man who fell off a horse. Suicidal, the man is trying to get at some drugs, and manipulates the girl by weaving beautiful tales of adventure, and stopping at key points until she does some sort of task for her.

The stories result in a more dramatic version of A Princess Bride with the listener interjecting often, but in this case actually changing the story as it goes. Unlike Kevin Arnold who groans at kissing scenes, the girl in The Fall is gunning for them.

If it's still in theaters, I recommend giving it a shot. The film is beautiful, which I should expect from an old music video director, and the story isn't at all disappointing (but I could be as wrong as I allegedly am about the third Harry Potter film, so fair warning). On a mean note, the director calls himself "Tarsem." Just "Tarsem." Which is kind of pretentious, but if he makes films this pretty, I'll forgive him.