Director: Tarsem Singh

Cast: Lee Pace, Justine Waddell, Cantinca Untaru

Rating:

A blend of passionate graphics and colors… as tempting as it is meant to be!

The Salvador Dali inspired movie poster worked its magic in turning heads towards and indie movie when it first came out… anyway, the magic worked indeed on me.

The first impression signifies that Sophistication is certainly present… then you will hear a desperate Movie-Aficionada prayer: “please don’t let it be anther camouflaged bait by yet another vicious director to drag us to movie theaters.”

Then you will come to learn about the stuntman Roy and the six-year old Alexandria who form a friendship by chance. Roy toys with Alexandria mind about some story he comes up with that he pretends he can’t finish unless she brings him what he needs; Morphine or M-O-R-B-H-I-N-Three… as she calls it.

They travel to a world that has been created to prove to Alexandria that magic, love, and adventure do exist and to help Roy manipulate the innocent creativity of the child’s mind for his own good.

Alexandria keeps excitingly visiting Roy’s room as she is unintentionally dragged to the magical adventure she is about to embark along with the five heroes who want to seek revenge from the merciless Governor Odious:

• The Indian
• The Italian Bomb Expert
• The Ex-Slave Otta Benga
• The Naturalist Darwin
• The Spanish yet American yet French Black Bandit

When later they are joined by a sixth hero – The mystic, who by his powers will help them find their way to their lead.

Reality mingles with imagination when Roy and Alexandria escape to a more interesting world of familiar faces but exotic spots and unexpected events. The story interfolds with both worlds where events move along in parallel feelings, endeavors, and deceptions.

Roy and Alexandria’s friendship grows stronger as they become each other’s escape from his reality as a desperate stuntman who can’t win the heart of a famous actress and her reality as an immigrant kid from a poor Romanian family.

I loved watching Alexandria’s (Catinca Untaru) performance and I would love to see more of her in coming movies… she honestly didn’t have to act as her charm was highly influenced by her innocence in addition to the fact that she already had a broken accent that got better during filming and she has already thought that the Actor playing Roy (Lee Pace) is actually paralyzed… The director (Tarsem Singh) kept her thinking so.

Tarsem had been involved in some impressive motion pictures such as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button as a 2nd director and the psychotic picture “The Cell” as the director for the movie. However, his work portfolio throughout years revolves around commercial ads for famous brands such as ‘Nike’ and music videos for famous bands such as ‘REM’.

The movie is not a magical escape as whoever watched the Big Fish would tell the difference. However, it’s a manipulation of reality or more like paraphrasing survival into a fable… it’s a soul’s adventure in different translations…

In my view the story line had a partial influence by The Fountain, however, not as intense as the latter was. The graphics, on the other hand, had a Julie Taymor touch if you have ever seen Across the Universe. If Taymor to ever work with Tarsem on some movie… they’d do wonders!

Some theatrical dream that looks so real… the only reason I’d say for you to watch this movie is that it exists… this is what they call “Movie Making” by all means.

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