The Fall (2008)

What a lovely film.

It reminded me a bit of A Little Princess, in that we have a storyteller whose tale becomes a part of the film.  In this case the narrator is Roy, a stuntman convalescing from both a crippling fall and a broken heart.  The listener is young Alexandria, also recuperating in the hospital due to a fall, but with the advantage of mobility since it was her arm that was hurt.

There's the part of the story that is the epic tale that Roy weaves for Alexandria.  We hear the words Roy speaks but see what Alexandria visualizes.  The characters have the same faces as people from her life and her interpretations (sometimes changing on-the-fly) are our illustrations.  For example: when Roy makes one of the characters an Indian, he refers to a "wigwam" while Alexandria sees a man from India in his palace.  The visuals are simply stunning.

And then there's the "real world" half of the movie, in which Roy is suicidal and depressed and Alexandria simply wants to cheer her new friend up.  Oh my word -- it's magic.

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