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Tarsem has made an extraordinary film.  Miles away from "The Cell"--in both breakthrough visuals and sheer human drama--his newest film "The Fall" places Tarsem at the top of this year's list of Best Directors so far.

It's been about a month since I watched the film and I still can't shake off some of the iconic imagery set by it.  The story behind the making of the film is widely known by now; a long time project that was very close to never getting wide distribution.  Aside from some crew members walking off from the team after finding out that lead actor Lee Pace was in fact NOT paralyzed from the waist down (his character in the film is), Tarsem managed to pull off the impossible: shooting an epic film on various contents, with a lead child actor who has never spoken any English before, in a movie that no one wants to finance. 

Well, he did it.  And the result is the year's best so far, holding a top spot on my '08 list, right up there with the minimalist "Shotgun Stories" and grossly misunderstood "Funny Games." 

Pace stars as Roy Walker, a fallen stuntman who is now stuck in his rigid bed at a California hospital in 1920s Hollywood.  A curious young girl (wearing a cast around her arm) comes across Roy and is entranced by him, his condition and his knack for storytelling.  The girl is Alexandria, played wonderfully by newcomer Catinca Untaru, and when she's not throwing oranges at priests she can be found at the foot of Roy's bed, eagerly listening to his stories about the masked bandit.

What do I think about the story?  The masked bandit and his journeys are simply an excuse to setup a wild canvas of visuals.  A niche Tarsem fills brilliantly.  So what if swimming elephants or butterfly-catching monkeys or growling dark-masked villains aren't the most original items in the world?  It's their aesthetic execution, coupled with the rhythms of Krishna Levy's score and the blurry lines between reality and fiction, which the film brings up, that are the real finds.

There are sequences in this film, from the black and white opening title segment to the bravura slave-rescue amidst a vast desert that will stand the test of time.  This is a big movie.

Yes, this is a pretty vaguely-written blog, but I can't help it.  The second I start typing a sentence to discuss a visual sequence or style, I find myself getting angry at how trite and blah it sounds like.

Enough of my tell.  Time for more show.