The Fall

Commercials director Tarsem Singh poured millions into this striking fantasia, shot in 18 countries, then self-distributed in the US (‘presented’ by David Fincher and Spike Jonze). It’s a unique undertaking, for good and ill.

It’s 1915, and a movie stuntman (Lee Pace, anonymous) languishes in an LA hospital, where he unspools tall tales to a little girl (Catinca Untaru, captivatingly unaffected) from another ward, who shares with us the images they conjure up in her mind’s eye – huge vistas, storybook heroism and colours so vivid we might have dreamed them. Profiting from jaw-dropping Indian locations, the film dazzles like few others, and its commitment to the wonders of the real world is refreshing. Yet once we’ve been dazzled, that’s it. The pacing drags and the clichéd tussle between childhood innocence and adult disillusionment can only go one way. Better to experience it than think about it, fair to say.