Fall is a sumptuous visual feast. While it is wildly over the top, overstuffed, and even a bit indulgent, it also happens to be a brilliant piece of visual storytelling and it left me absolutely awestruck. This is the first film in a long time that had me asking myself; "How the hell did they do that?" Indeed there are several moments throughout where it's incredibly difficult to tell if you're watching a digital effect or the real thing.

The Fall takes place in 1920's Los Angeles and features Lee Pace as suicidal stuntman Roy Walker. When recuperating in a hospital after a nasty fall, Roy befriends Alexandria (played by Catinca Untaru), a young, precocious girl with a broken arm. Alexandria takes an instant liking to Roy, and soon, this depressed, injured man finds himself spending hours in a bed telling fantastical tales to this eager child. As he tells these stories, we the audience experience the spellbinding tales through director Tarsem Singh's magical eyes.

Sadly, Roy has a hidden agenda. After gaining Alexandria's trust, he attempts to bait the young girl into assisting him in suicide. None the wiser, Alexandria does as she's told and fetches drugs from the medicine cabinet in hopes that once she brings the pills back to the immobile Roy, he'll continue telling her all these wonderfully creative stories.

Tarsem Singh is a video director by trade. He earned respect for his work on R.E.M.'s Losing My Religion spot before taking on the visual thriller The Cell starring Jennifer Lopez, Vince Vaughn and a creepy as hell Vincent D'Onofrio. After a lengthy hiatus, Tarsem returns with The Fall, but it wouldn't be an easy sell. And in fact, The Fall has sat on a shelf collecting dust for the last two years. It seems that no one was willing to take a chance on it. It's a shame too because The Fall has visual bravado to spare.

The Fall is one ambitious beast of a movie, and while it is uneven and an even a bit silly at times, I couldn't take my eyes off of it. It's one breathtaking piece of imagery after the next. Pure magic by a passionate storyteller.

While The Fall is certainly more about style than performance, one can't talk about it's overall effectiveness without mentioning young Catinca Untaru. This in one of the most interesting (and endearing) performances I've seen from a child in quite some time. It's quirky but not in a labored way. On the contrary, Untaru is incredibly naturalistic, and she held my interest every step of the way. And in fact, she constantly upstages the more seasoned Lee Pace.

The Fall is essentially about a man with a broken heart, but at it's core, this movie is really about the power of storytelling. For Alexandria, these stories are enchanting but for Roy, they're at cathartic release. For Tarsem, The Fall is a means to take the audience somewhere they've never been before, and that he does.

While The Fall certainly isn't as effective as the similarly themed Pan's Labyrinth, it's still a milestone in terms of visual storytelling, and as flawed as it is, it's still far more engrossing than most studio pictures would dare to be. If Terry Gilliam had written and directed The Princess Bride, it might have ended up looking like this. Here's to hoping we don't have to wait another eight years for Tarsem's next picture.