One of These Things is not like the Other ...

[Welcome readers of Pharyngula.  If you want to look around, my "Best of 2007" posts would be a decent place to start.  Or with my first "Best of."  Or with the second.  Or you could remind yourself why this place looks familiar to PZ's readers.]

I've been a fan of Tarsem Singh since being hypnotized by "Losing My Religion" in the 90s.  His feature film debut, The Cell, somehow managed to make me forget I was watching a movie starring Jennifer Lopez.  The trailer for his next film, The Fall, is now available, and it looks as stunning, hallucinogenic, and inscrutable as his past work.  There's a hitch.

Viewers aren't supposed to laugh uncontrollably during previews for epic tales told by recuperating soldiers to little children.  Yet I did.  I still want to see the movie, mind you, but the incongruity is so jarring, so unexpected ... I'll stop there.  Watch the preview and experience it for yourself:

Then join me in the comments to discuss it.

Comments

[SEK]

Now, isn't this a text-book example of what makes Pynchonian catalogs work? I mean:

There were five of them: the Indian, The ex-slave, an explosives expert, Charles Darwin, and The Masked Bandit ...

There's got to be a rhetorical device that covers this sort of thing, but I, for the life of me, can't figure out which one it is.

[arthegall]

a rhetorical device that covers this sort of thing

Humor? Absurd humor?

[Vance Maverick]

If they hadn't specified that there were five of them, I would have been sure that Charles Darwin was the explosives expert.

Anyway, you need your kitsch detector recalibrated. All this and Beethoven's Seventh (the greatest piece of music in the Western canon!) to underscore the pomposity.

[Trevor J]

Is this a sequel to Baron Munchausen?

[SEK]

Humor? Absurd humor?

Well, it's funny, but it's a particular kind of funny. "One of these things is not like the other" is the best I could come up with, but there's got to be a particular device that covers this.

Anyway, you need your kitsch detector recalibrated.

I don't think so. The appeal of Tarsem's work is pure visual, and the visuals aren't kitsch, even when the plots are. Have you seen The Cell? Sure, it would've worked better as a silent film, but still, it's mesmerizing (esp. considered how jaded we are by special effects, which is one of the reasons Guillermo del Toro's so fascinating, inasmuch as he manages to make visual spectacles that cut through our jaded expectations and wow us).

[Sisyphus]

I think this is going to be one of those dreamlike films where you watch and just go along for the ride. Don't try to apply your silly ideas of logic and consistency to anything inside it or the the gold-plated zebras will eat you on toast.

[SEK]

the the gold-plated zebras

And if The Cell is any indication, they'll be inside-out.

(Or thinly-sliced and exhibited in glass, yet still alive.)

[Zeno]

So is Charles Darwin going to appear as a young naturalist who happens along at an opportune time to participate in some epic adventure? I know whips had already been invented at that time, but where would he get the fedora?

[Anthony Paul Smith]

This looks wonderful.

[JPool]

So, ... Cirque du Soleil decided to go a different way?

My memory of The Cell was of short bursts of stunning visuals spaced with long sections of not a lot happening. I can only hope that he's developed better pacing and story-telling skills here. Also, I remember thinking during the horse slicing scene, "I wonder if this whole thing is sponsed by the Tate Modern?"

[SEK]

So is Charles Darwin going to appear as a young naturalist who happens along at an opportune time to participate in some epic adventure?

Zeno, my wife would flay you alive for your sacrilege. Jones is an archaeologist, not some insect-gathering naturalist.

(Though, admittedly, I'm with you on this one.)

My memory of The Cell was of short bursts of stunning visuals spaced with long sections of not a lot happening. I can only hope that he's developed better pacing and story-telling skills here. Also, I remember thinking during the horse slicing scene, "I wonder if this whole thing is sponsed by the Tate Modern?"

I didn't even know what the Tate Modern was when I first saw it; that said, I'd worshiped in the full glory of Vincent D'Onofrio's psychotic melt-down in Full Metal Jacket for a couple of years by that point, so I found a lot of the scenes that probably bored you absolutely menacing.

[jake]

I don't think so. The appeal of Tarsem's work is pure visual, and the visuals aren't kitsch, even when the plots are.

Agreed. The Cell was amazing for this reason alone, even if it was merely a "serial killer movie." I loved the costumes Vincent D'Onofrio had to wear, and the color of his skin in various scenes was eerie at times.

The man needs a good story to work with however.

[Emily]

Based on the anecdotes I've heard about how movies get made, The Cell seems like a mash-up of a bunch of talents that some producer or group considered up-and-coming. Jennifer Lopez had just done Out of Sight, but wasn't making real blockbusters (as far as I remember), Vince Vaughn hadn't made it huge, but he had made an impression, the director had an interesting music video credit and a really neat visual style, and it's the first screen writing credit for the writer. It's no wonder that the different elements of the movie clash; I bet they were making this mid-budget flick to get the credit to keep making movies.

Since Tarsem apparently wrote and produced The Fall, the plot and visuals are hopefully better aligned.

/wild, uninformed speculation

[Wrought]

One of these things is not like the other? Incongruous juxtaposition, or something like that.

[Ahistoricality]

Didn't they do a version of this film with Arnold Schwarzenegger, which itself was a knock-off of Die Unendliche Geschichte?

The visuals look fantastic, and I'm all for a little mythopoetics in cinema, but I have a really low tolerance for films that hinge on the betrayal and exploitation of children.

[Ahistoricality]

On the "one of these things" question: I think he is a mythic figure at this point, an Ur-Scientist.

[Dave M]

Pynchonian catalogs? More like Borgesian: you know, those which from a distance look like flies, those belonging to the Emperor, those included in the present classification, etc.

[Unpronounceable]

Not Borgesian at all, considering that in Borgesian catalogs all the mentioned items are more or less arbitrary (to signify the universe, no less!). Charles Darwin just seems like the odd one out beside the nineteenth-century pulpness of the others. Is that a rhetorical device? Odd one out? Seems like a good-looking movie, anyway.

[JPool]

Ahistoricality,
Never, under any circumstances, attmept to watch Terry Gilliam's Tideland. My wife and stopped about halfway through because it was making us want to cry and bang our heads against the coffee table.

[Eisnel]

I agree with a previous commenter, this is reminiscent of "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen": a man telling a fantasy story to a little girl; in the story the man is heroic, but in reality he's frail; the lines between reality and story blur; the girl motivates the man to live up to the ideals in his story; and there's an evil government official. That's not a bad comparison, because Baron Munchausen is one of my favorite films. It just means that this film has big shoes to fill. I will see this movie. It looks beautiful.