Monday, May 19, 2008

Tarsem's THE FALL--and why you may see fewer arthouse films like it.

Film-and-video auteur Tarsem (who as Tarsem Singh directed the 2000 thriller THE CELL with Jennifer Lopez and Vince Vaughn) has a new film in the arthouse marketplace called THE FALL.

THE FALL has a set-in-1915-L.A. framing device : an injured Hollywood stuntman (Lee Pace of PUSHING DAISIES) tells a young immigrant girl (Catinca Untaru, giving what may be the best performance by a child you'll see this year) a fantastical story about diverse heroes who join together on a quest--a story containing elements of THE WIZARD OF OZ and THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN.

THE FALL has received some rough treatment from mainstream critics--it was urinated on by ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY's Owen Glieberman (receiving the D+ grade) along with pans from Richard "film reviewing is more a business than anything else to me" Roeper and Michael Phillips on the unofficially-titled ROEPER WITHOUT EBERT SHOW.  The consensus of the pans seems to be that THE FALL is lovely but boring and pretentious.  I saw the same film the reviewers did--and found it quite imaginative, humorous and moving.  But what do I know?

Kudos to small independent distributor Roadside Attractions (and the willingness of filmmakers Spike Jonze and David Fincher to take presentation credit on the ads) for guiding THE FALL into a more-cutthroat-than-ever specialty-film universe and, so far, supporting and nurturing the audience attracted to the film.

Last year, quite a few independent films were released into American theaters--and a lot of them were boxoffice stiffs.  Now, the mentality towards acquiring arthouse product has shapeshifted into the same kind of everything-must-be-a-blockbuster ethos routinely in effect at mainstream studios such as Warner Brothers (who, likely thanks to Alan Horn and Jeff Robinov, closed down its specialty divisions Picturehouse and Warner Independent Pictures recently).

A recent article about this syndrome in THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER made a valid point: when distributors acquire films according to a this-is-surefire mentality, they often forget that the small pictures considered uncommercial are those which often become successful with the public.

An example: last year's sleeper success ONCE, the Irish-love-story-with-music.  It was, thankfully, supported and nurtured by 20th Century Fox's boutique unit Fox Searchlight.

The question is: How many "small films" like ONCE (with the potential of connecting with an audience) will even find a distributor this year?

 

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