The Cell (2000)

The Cell (2000)

Dir. Tarsem Singh

J-Lo dives into the mind of a very mentally disturbed, comatose serial killer (Vincent D'Onofrio) hoping to convince him to take her seriously now that she's an actress in a real, genuine, honest to grud film! If she fails to reach and reason with him in time, someone dies.

It's aged badly (or maybe that's me?), and is shallower than it pretends to be — step in it and your toes will barely get wet — but the movie has a few memorable moments, most of which come from D'Onofrio, who has an intensely overbearing cinematic presence. Without him it would be little more than a bunch of pretty moving pictures attached to a plot that draws from The Silence of the Lambs (1991) movie.

Visually, it's both bad and good: the CGI is awful, but many of the visual and optical effects are pretty wonderful, with a surreal quality that on occasion seemed inspired by the likes of the Quay Brothers; there's a tiny bit of Lynch, too.

The Fall (2006)

The Fall (2006)

Dir. Tarsem Singh

Tarsem often favours style over substance. I'm sure I've criticised him for it in the past, but never in regards to The Fall. Take the time to understand its tiered structure and you'll discover that substance is very much there, indivisible from style, reliant on an obvious contrast between its two different states.

On the surface, the more traditional story being told is a frame that holds within it an additional, fantastical, allegorical story narrated by one character to another, not unlike Scheherazade in One Thousand and One Nights. The imaginations of both teller and recipient are given life, acted out like an elaborate and ornate play. The full picture can only be appreciated when you consider the frame and what it holds as one product.