What is the essence of a nightmare? Is it simply a matter of being afraid? Being surrounded by uncertainty and confusion? It could be argued that it goes deeper than that. A true nightmare is one in whichthere is no escape, and everything around you is slowly crushed under the heel of inevitability.Many filmmakers have tried to produce nightmares on screen, but few have such a firm grasp on its all-encompassing suffocation thanJonathan Glazer. Before he directed the new definitive film on fascism,The Zone of Interest, Glazer made a short film calledThe Fall, that served as an unintended appetizer for his masterpiece. While being barely seven minutes long, it offers what feels like an odyssey of terror that uses its lack of context to give the audience no time to catch up, just like its protagonist.
A masked mob cruelly punish a lone masked man in this nightmarish short film.
What Is ‘The Fall’ About?
The Falldrops you in the middle of a manhunt, with the target already hiding in a tree like a frightened kitten. On the ground is a large mob of people, all dressed in black and wearing similar face masks that areuncomfortable in their malleable anonymity. On the pursuers, the masks seem to be gleefully gloating about the prize that they’ve bagged; on the captive, the mask looks like utter confusion and pitiful begging. The mob shakes them off of the tree, and takes a picture of them while being held up like the dead carcass of an animal shot on safari. They then hang the captive with a noose and throw them down a well, to their intended death. The mob even makes sure to check that their prey is dealt with, popping up and peeking down the well likeevil Muppets. Little do they realize that the captive has survived the deep plunge, scrambling ever so slowly up the well with the most precarious of grips on the sides. We exit with the sounds of the scrapes of their long trek, with no way of knowing if they will ever make the climb or not.
That’s the entirty of the movie. No plot information, no concept of backstory or motivation, no real payoff or cathartic release. It’s raw iconography all in service of an overarching theory:the pervasive virality of mob mentality.The similarity between the masks is key, as it creates the implication that all of these people were part of the same social group. Therefore, something had to have happened to make this mob turn on this one individual. The not knowing underlines the thesis of the film: that no matter the justification, fascistic mob violence is inherently wrong and is a terror upon all.This is to say nothing of how, as a basic cinematic experience, it forces you into a mindset that’s just as chaotic and confused as the captive. AsRoger Ebertonce wrote, “like all nightmares, it doesn’t tell us half of what we want to know.”
Glazer Took Inspiration From History, Goya, and the Trump Family
Jonathan Glazer is not a filmmaker who is usually that verbose when it comes to discussing his films, buthe did provide some insightsinto his formulation of this short. He said that the shot of the mob taking a picture of their captive was directly inspired bya picture of Eric and Donald Trump, Jr. holding the corpse of a leopard that they’d shot.This ties into his general belief that “fear is ever-present…[and] drives people to irrational behavior. A mob encourages an abdication of personal responsibility. The rise ofNational Socialism in Germany, for instance, was like a fever that took hold of people.”
Glazer also referenced the paintings ofFrancisco Goyaand the poetry ofBertolt Brechtas notable influences, pointing to their fixations on being surrounded by a cruel society, and the need to speak out about the dark times we live in. He even gave a shout-out to the late greatAnthony Minghella, director of films likeThe English PatientandThe Talented Mr. Ripley, for telling him that “a short film should be like a perfect sentence.“The Falldoes have the energy of one of those “two-sentence horror stories,” with its economic sense of establishment andability to draw maximum dread out of so little information.
‘The Fall’ Is in Conversation With ‘The Zone of Interest’
At the time, this short may have seemed like a swerve for Glazer, especially when considering it premiered exclusively on television and on the Internet. But his follow-up film, the Oscar-nominatedThe Zone of Interest, is seemingly conversation with the short.Both expose the reality of “fascism” not as an evil voodoo force thatIndiana Jones can easily punch out,as most depictions of Nazis in pop culture wind up being, but a collective decision among regular human beings to prop a particular person or people up as the demonic force that must be eliminated. The mob inThe Falltreat this individual as big game they’re proud to have hunted, and Rudolf Höss' family inThe Zone of Interesttreat living next door to Auschwitz as a mild inconvenience in their quest for an ideal domestic situation.Both films use sidestepping of the obvious horrors, a chilling Mica Levi score, and insidious sound designto bake you into a world of no escape from that which is all around you. Try and watch the zoom-in shot of the noose rope rapidly falling down the well without feeling like you’re getting rope-burn just hearing it.
With hindsight being 20/20, Glazer’s prior films do feel of a piece withThe Fall, if only for their collective mastery of nightmare logic.Sexy Beasttook a simple gangster heist set-up and turned it into a pressure cooker whereBen Kingsleyis the ultimate boogeyman you can’t escape from.Birthturned romantic ideation on its head by showing howeverlasting love can be a terrifying promise to uphold.Under the Skinmadealienating brillianceout of the question “what ifStanley KubrickremadeSpecies?” People have a misconception that for things to feel surreal or spooky, they must thrive on pure surrealism or haveDavid Lynch’s name on it. Glazer understands that true nightmares thrive by building half-formed stories out of the things that swim in the darkest recesses of your mind, and are only so potent because you know deep down it’s true on an emotional level. It’s hard to be reminded that most monsters that exist in the real world are simply other humans, but Jonathan Glazer has been telling us that for nearly 20 years. It’s about time we finally listened.
