The Falls (1980)

User Rating:

7.7/10   

Director:

Peter Greenaway

Writer:

Peter Greenaway (writer)

Genre:

Drama | Sci-Fi

Plot:

The world has been affected by a mysterious occurrance known as the Violent Unknown Event or VUE. It has caused immortality and disability...

Plot Keywords:

Bird | Film Industry | Fake Documentary | Surrealism | Independent Film

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Peter Westley
Aad Wirtz
Michael Murray
Lorna Poulter
Patricia Carr
Adam Leys	...	Narrator
Mary Howard
Sheila Canfield	...	Narrator
Evelyn Owen
Hilary Thompson	...	Narrator
Carole Meyer
Monica Hyde
Colleen Thomas
Neil Hopkins
Dewi Thomas

Runtime:

195 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Argentina:13 | UK:PG

Company:

British Film Institute (BFI)

Trivia:

Cameo: [Michael Nyman]

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 3: From Sark to the Finish (2003)

Documentary as Borgesian fantasy.

Exhausting and brilliant, Greenaway's first feature may come as a surprise to those familiar with his more famous concoctions, such as THE DRAUGHTSMAN'S CONTRACT or DROWNING BY NUMBERS. Instead of sumptuous finery, set-design and colour, or studied, enigmatic performances, we have a, very local, documentary. A documentary which, like all others in the genre, seeks to examine realistically a particular problem in a particular area, through evidence, witness and analysis. A documentary whose 'real' elements are so preposterous that they develop not into an answer for truth, but full-blown mystery and fantasy, without ever moving beyond words and plausible images. What is very Greenaway is the numerology, the formalism, the very literary script, the arch jokes, the word-games, the nonsense-as-high-theory. Stunning, but you may not watch it again in a hurry.