The Falls (1980) 185m.
Another counting game by idiosyncratic director Peter Greenaway. In many ways it is the ultimate Greenaway film. Audacious feature has no story and seems like a put-on when you try to describe it to others. A strange occurrence, known in the film as the Violent Unknown Event (VUE), strikes the planet one night and leaves 19 million victims in its wake. The effects are mixed, sometimes benevolent, sometimes not, sometimes a little of both, but common symptoms can be identified. Most pointedly, the victims become obsessed with birds and flight. Several also begin talking in unidentifiable languages. Greenaway elects to tell his story by excerpting 92 biographies from a filmed catalogue of VUE victims, each name starting with the letters FALL. For the first twenty minutes this doesn't look like easy viewing - by the fifteenth biography (they vary in running times) we realize there are still another 77 to go - but eventually we become familiar with the material and its recurring themes, and Greenaway's mammoth project becomes intriguing.
Anyone acquainted with other Greenaway films will know that his work is very much an acquired taste, which is why THE FALLS is not recommended to neophytes (but if you're feeling brave, go ahead and take the plunge). Much of the fun comes from recognizing quotes from his previous short subjects and future features - there are the women called Cissie Colpitts (who would resurface - pun intended - in DROWNING BY NUMBERS); one subject's obsession with the letter H (H IS FOR HOUSE); the dreams of water (WATER); the characters who are watching another Greenaway film (VERTICAL FEATURES REMAKE); the blend of artwork and birds (A WALK THROUGH H). THE FALLS also quotes from itself: there are 92 biographies, 92 trains, 92 VUE languages; characters do indeed 'fall' (from buildings, from homemade wings in the style of Icarus) and literally become 'falls' (one woman turns into a human waterfall, a man changes his name to Niagara). Greenaway's punning and deadpan humour reinforce the futility of his project. Much of the information compiled for the biographies is trivial and not particularly useful (e.g. one man's body heat is identical to the average temperature of sedentary passerines). The randomness of the VUE symptoms add to its arbitrariness. Nobody can agree on theories (the epicentre of the VUE) or even facts (the date in history when one man jumped from the Eiffel Tower). It appears that to Greenaway any collection of statistics is just as fanciful as a fiction, which may explain his project's concept. THE FALLS presents facts and figures as ultimately fractal, where the very act of codifying creates a sort of unpredictable, baroque aesthetic. And who better than Greenaway, an artist and former statistician, to present this?
This may be Greenaway's least accessible feature, but it has a lot going for it - it is markedly unique and highly personal. Not merely an elaborate experimental film, it reminds us of the territories that cinema can create and then travel in. But it's probably enough that THE FALLS runs for three hours - Greenaway has stated that he would like to make an even longer version for television. Given his interest in computer/video technology, it's likely that the ultimate fate of THE FALLS is to exist as an actual directory on CD-ROM. That's taking cinematic boundaries about as far as they can get.
sburridge@hotmail.com
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