If you like the white hot taste of wasabi, chaotic Jackson Pollack splatter paintings or the tweaked out music of Aphex Twin, you should see 'The Fall' by director Tarsem. That's not to say that wasabi, Pollack or Aphex Twin or anything resembling them appears in the movie, but like those other extreme sensual experiences, you will either love the full frontal mad genius on display or hate it for the same reasons.

As a visual experience, 'The Fall' is one of the most startlingly beautiful pictures filmed in the last decade, ranking with the likes of 'Hero', 'Brokeback Mountain' and 'Pan's Labrynth'. You'll see gargantuan desert sand dunes, impossible labyrinthine palaces, graceful whirling dervishes nearly suspended in slow motion and elaborate exotic costumes from all corners of the world. Then there are a host of unforgettable surreal and fantastic images that I would do well to not describe for fear of ruining the experience of seeing them for the first time. Try to imagine a gothic Terry Gilliam or Tim Burton directing the Wizard of Oz.

As with much of the imagery, the less I say about the plot, the better. It is minimalistic and simple to predict anyway. It's the way it is told that matters, with two stories parallel and intertwined, one real and one fantasy. The movie is in part about storytelling and imagination itself. It is occasionally violent and spirals deep into brutal emotional places. To paraphrase one Samwise Gamgee, it's like the great stories, full of darkness and danger. Sometimes you didn't want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? But it's only a passing thing. Even darkness must pass and when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.

Here's a link to the movie trailer, but watch it at your own risk because it does spoil many of the best images of the movie:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Q6j-vg8uNcE