A `Fall' no one wants to take

And what did Tarsem do with most of that dough? Breaking the cardinal mantra of Hollywood, he spent it making a movie called "The Fall." Shot in 24 countries over a period of nearly four years, the film is a dazzling visual fantasy as well as a meditation on the art of storytelling, seen through the eyes of a young girl and a bedridden stuntman who spins yarns about five exotic brigands roaming the world on the hunt for treasure. David Fincher, who has a "presented by" credit on the film along with Spike Jonze, describes the film as "what would've happened if Andrei Tarkovsky had made 'The Wizard of Oz.' "

After emptying his pockets, Tarsem -- who goes only by his first name -- has just one problem. He can't get anyone to release the movie.

Nearly 10 months after it debuted at the Toronto Film Festival, "The Fall" remains unsold, hurt by a largely negative critical reception at the festival. Even though the film has found admirers in Europe, potential studio buyers have all raised the same nagging question -- exactly who is the audience for this picture?

Fair question. For all its style and ambition, "The Fall" -- which screens Saturday at 9 p.m. in the Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum as part of the L.A. Film Festival's Secret Screening series -- is exactly the kind of film that is overlooked in an era in which marketability trumps originality. Though the story revolves around a spirited young girl -- played by Catinca Untaru, a 6-year-old from Romania who had never acted before -- it is too intense for young kids, yet too self-consciously artsy for mainstream audiences. In many ways it's a throwback to the "Raging Bulls" era of filmmaking, when directors pursued personal visions with such pictures as Nicholas Roeg's "Performance" or Francis Ford Coppola's "One From the Heart."

"This is an obsession I wish I hadn't had," Tarsem explained during a recent stay in Los Angeles. "It was just something I needed to exorcise. You have to make your personal films when you're still young. I knew if I didn't do it now, it would never happen."