Escape into fairytale beauty...

I've been looking forward to seeing this movie since I first saw it mentioned last year. Today I finally watched it on dvd. And I loved it.

At a Los Angeles hospital in the 1920s, a little girl called Alexandria is recovering from a broken arm. She befriends Roy Walker, a suicidal movie stunt man with legs paralysed after a fall. Roy tells her a fantastic story about five men of widely varied backgrounds: a masked bandit in a blue cloak, a highly fictionalised version of Charles Darwin (who has a monkey named Wallace), an Indian warrior, an ex-slave named Otta Benga, and an Italian explosives expert called Luigi. All of these men are on a quest to kill a corrupt provincial governor named Odious, who has harmed each of them in some way.  And they unite forces to achieve revenge. Between chapters of the story, Roy persuades Alexandria to scout the hospital's pharmacy for morphine...

The story Roy tells is drawn in the images of Alexandria's imagination and the characters, including the heroes, are the people who inhabit her real life transported to a beautiful, colourful, stylised world. In this world a Native-American Indian warrior becomes an Asian Indian because the only Indian Alexandria has ever met is from the Indian subcontinent. The story also includes Alexander the Great, exotic cities, tropical seas, orange deserts, a swimming elephant, a beautiful nun... Who can resist?

The film contains almost no special effects, only clever cinematography, and was filmed in in 26 locations in over 18 countries (including South Africa). 

If you haven't already seen it, you might like to. It's beautifully acted. And beautiful.

Escapism at its best.