Let’s talk for a moment about Tarsem Singh. For my part, I know absolutely nothing about the guy except that he has one movie (Immortals) coming out next Friday, with another one (Mirror Mirror, one of two competing Snow White projects) coming out next March. Those are two high-profile, high-budget films, coming out only four months apart. That kind of momentum is exceedingly rare in Hollywood, especially for directors. The writing on the wall isn’t that hard to read, folks: Tarsem Singh is about to break out in a big way.

So here’s The Fall, one of Singh’s earlier directorial efforts, made back when he went by the one-word name of “Tarsem.” Not only did this movie come highly recommended by several friends and correspondents, but it also stars Lee Pace, who later went on to star in one of the WGA strike’s more tragic casualties, “Pushing Daisies.”

Oh, and the only other film he’d made before this was a Jennifer Lopez stinker called The Cell. Choosing one over the other wasn’t that hard, really.

Another interesting factoid about the film is that it boasts credits for visionary directors David Fincher and Spike Jonze. Not that they had anything to do with the film’s creation, they just presented the movie to the 2006 Toronto Film Festival for its inaugural screening. So it is that this movie can forever say “Presented by David Fincher and Spike Jonze,” as if that means anything.

Anyway, this movie focuses on two characters, both of whom are stuck in a California hospital in the 1920s (or “once upon a time,” if you will). One of them is Alexandria (Catinca Untaru), a young girl with a broken arm and a very tenuous grasp of the English language. The other is Roy Walker (Lee Pace), a stuntman who gets injured — maybe even paralyzed — on his first movie.

Through some stroke of luck, Alexandria happens upon Roy. The latter isn’t only desperate for entertainment, but he also needs some means of committing suicide by way of a morphine overdose. To that end, he befriends the girl and keeps them both occupied with an epic tale that he makes up on the fly. From here, we see the story as told by Roy and interpreted by Alexandria’s imagination. And then, events in the real world start to resemble images from the story in some scarily uncanny ways. In turn, the story is increasingly populated by characters who resemble people from the real world.

Before the first act was over, a single thought popped into my head. It was a thought that kept buzzing around in there and only got noisier with each passing minute. There’s just no getting around it, as far as I’m concerned: This is a Terry Gilliam picture. Seriously, the concept of a story in which the protagonists try to escape from the oppressions of reality by immersing themselves in fantasy describes pretty much every one of Terry Gilliam’s movies. Furthermore, there are so many costumes and sets in this movie that might have sprung directly from the former Python’s mind. Gilliam is also known for presenting whimsical fantasies entirely through a child’s perspective, though that falls into Guillermo del Toro’s wheelhouse as well.

Then again, I suppose that if you’re going to imitate anyone, you may as well imitate the best. What’s more, Singh does a wonderful job of designing, shooting, and directing the film with a quality that might be comparable to Gilliam’s better works. That’s a very impressive feat, to say the least.

Also, in Singh’s defense, there’s no denying that he knows how to work a camera. The visuals in this movie are stunning from first to last, with every set, every costume, every effect, and every camera set-up constructed in painstaking detail. What’s more, Singh utilizes several recurring leitmotifs and symbols that weave through the movie in some fascinating ways. Even the characters work as recurring symbols, since of course all the actors play fantasy/reality double roles.

The fantasy is really the movie’s main attraction. There are several times when the characters act and speak as if their script really was written by a six-year-old. Not only can the proceedings get cliched and impossible, but the characters themselves occasionally comment on how cliched and impossible things get. It’s very amusing, in a meta sort of way.

Having said that, it’s worth noting that though this fantasy is written in part by a little girl, the story definitely doesn’t pull its punches. When violence happens, there are no cut-aways. When characters get shot, there’s blood. When characters die, it’s treated reverently as a great trauma.

Then, just before the film enters the third act, Alexandria starts taking the initiative to put her own spin on the story. At this point, the child full of life wants a happy ending, while the adult wants to die and for the characters to share his fate. This results in a sort of tug-of-war between the two, as they wrestle for control over the story. The results are actually quite interesting to watch as they manifest themselves in the narrative. And of course, because Roy himself plays a character in the story, he and Alexandria aren’t just fighting over the Bandit’s fate, but that of Roy as well.

Lee Pace is really the hero of the piece, and he acquits himself marvelously as a man of action and a broken down human being alike. As for his co-star, Catinca Untaru does a great job, though she occasionally seemed a little too “pwecious” for my taste. Really, those are the only two actors in this film worth writing home about, which is part of the problem that I have with this movie.

I’ve been going on about how this film is similar to the works of Guillermo del Toro and Terry Gilliam; and hell, I’d say that there’s a fair bit of The Princess Bride and The NeverEnding Story in there as well. However, those movies all have something that The Fall doesn’t: Scale.

Think about the giant who wore a boat as a hat. Think about the angel in full armor who saves a fair damsel. Think about Baron Munchausen dancing with Venus in midair. Think about the Pale Man. Think about the Rockbiter or Falkor. All of these are iconic images, synonymous with their respective movies. Each of them could only exist through the magic of special effects and a great imagination. The Fall doesn’t really have any such moment. The best it can manage is a swimming elephant, which doesn’t nearly pass muster.

Furthermore, remember how The Princess Bride actually populated its setting? Remember all the lands and villagers and soldiers that Prince Humperdinck had under his command? There’s absolutely nothing like that here, which honestly detracts from the menace of Governor Odious. Oh, and there’s also the fact that all the other aforementioned movies had more than two memorable characters.

Now, you may argue that these problems came about through lack of budget. I would consider that to be a perfectly valid argument, except that Singh seems so much more competent than that. Singh was clearly able to generate swarms of soldiers, so why couldn’t he have put in some merchants or commuters or people going about their lives in this fantasy world? Furthermore, given the huge amount of creativity and talent that went into these sets and costumes, I find it hard to believe that Singh couldn’t have made a single monster or a faraway kingdom unknown to man. In fact, given the premise of being created by a child’s imagination, Singh probably could have made a dragon out of papier-mache and gotten away with it. Hell, he could have brought some kind of magic potion into the mix (a sleeping draught or a life-restoring liquor, perhaps) and it wouldn’t have cost a cent.

When all is said and done, I think that The Fall isn’t nearly as great as it could’ve been. The film implicitly talks a great deal about how imagination can save a mortal soul, but the imagination that’s actually on display doesn’t go nearly far enough when push comes to shove. That said, there’s a great amount of effort and heart on display, and there’s no denying that Tarsem Singh shows a great amount of visual flair. I greatly look forward to seeing what he does with a decent budget and studio support.