The Fall is a 2019 short film from Jonathan Glazer and the themes and style present in his feature-length movies are all present in this disturbing and unnerving short. Major movie directors don’t always dabble in short films, but when they do, they bring all their on-set talent, understanding of film language, and ability to convey emotions and ideas effectively and easily. Whether it’s Denis Villeneuve directing Next Floor or Martin Scorsese doing The Big Shave, these directors prove they don’t need 90+ minutes to make something worthwhile.

Jonathan Glazer’s 2019 short, The Fall, is a 7-minute film (5 without credits) that is set in a forest late at night. A man wearing a mask somewhere between a Salvador Dalí mask and a Michael Myers mask is clinging to the top of a tree while a mob of similarly masked individuals shake him off. Once they do, they take his pH๏τo, put a noose around his neck, and throw him down a well. Satisfied, they leave, not realizing their quarry has survived and is making his way back up as the credits role.

The Fall Is A Nightmare Look At Fascism

Violence Is Immediate And Senseless In The Fall

The Fall is a simple film, with little in the way of dialogue, and even less in the way of acting. Each character’s face is covered by an unsettling mask, either frozen in a rictus of fear, like the victim, or gleeful rage, like the mob. It’s a nightmare. The dark forest, the sudden drop when the man is hung, the way he survives a seemingly impossible death, and the characters who look like people but are indistinct, all lend The Fall a dream-like quality.

Jonathan Glazer’s nightmare in The Fall is one that he’s touched on before and since, and one that the world has constantly had to contend with over the centuries. It’s a nightmare about fascism and the faceless, meaningless violence that defines it. Like how homegrown fascism can happen right next door, the setting does not stray in The Fall, beginning at a tree, and ending in a well, just a few paces from the tree. The victim in The Fall and the mob all have similar masks, suggesting that they were once all part of the same group.

Of the many insidious aspects of fascism, one of the most destabilizing is that one can never truly know if they’re in an in-group or an out-group, and that designation changes all the time. Perhaps the man in the tree was hanging another man just a moment before. It brings to mind a quote from the German Lutheran pastor, Martin Niemöller, who wrote about the complicity of Germans in World War II (via HolocaustEncyclopedia),

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

The man in the tree looks like he was part of the mob at one point, and for some unknown reason, perhaps no reason at all, it’s his turn to face the noose. The end of The Fall sees the mob peering into the well to ensure he has died, but they don’t look long. Because fascism is not concerned with ensuring its methods are effective or done correctly.

When it’s all summed up, it’s just violence, and once the mob sees they’ve committed violence, they move on. The question at the end is if the man comes out of the well with a new understanding of this system or if he will simply rejoin the mob.

Some Scenes Were Inspired By Modern Events

A PH๏τo Of Donald Trump’s Sons Inspired A Scene In The Fall

Jonathan Glazer has spoken about some of his inspirations for The Fall and a notable modern example comes from a pH๏τo he saw of Eric and Donald Trump Jr. posing with an exotic animal they hunted (via TheGuardian). He said he came up with the idea of the mob holding up the victim for a pH๏τo,

“The day I saw a picture of the Trump sons grinning with a ᴅᴇᴀᴅ leopard.”

The Trump family has long been accused of fascism by political opponents and skeptics. That idea may have been rattling around in Glazer’s brain when he saw the pH๏τo, one of several that Eric and Donald Jr. have posted after successful big game hunts.

Francisco Goya Informed The Look Of The Fall

Jonathan Glazer Referenced Three Goya Paintings As Inspiration

The paintings of Francisco Goya also helped inspire the look and feel of The Fall. Goya was a Spanish romantic painter, often considered one of the Old Masters and one of the first modernist painters. His paintings were often concerned with political corruption, insanity, religion, and frightening, fantastical creatures. Jonathan Glazer specifically pointed to “The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters” in which bat-like creatures flap around a sleeping man, often interpreted as a critique of Spanish society as ignorant, maddening, and corrupt.

Glazer was also influenced by Goya’s other works,

“His [Goya’s] ‘Disasters of War’ etchings, urgently тιтled ‘I Saw It’ or ‘This Is Worse’. Hell on earth, witnessed like a pH๏τojournalist such as Robert Capa or Don McCullin. Ferocious, factual, unflinching.”

The rawness and unrelenting grimness of Goya’s works can be seen in The Fall. When the pH๏τo of the mob is developed, the characters look stretched and contorted, as if painted on the screen. They look inhuman, as the bats do, circling and harᴀssing the powerless man at the center.

The Fall Is Right In Line With Jonathan Glazer’s Feature Filmography

The Zone Of Interest And The Fall Have Similar Themes

Jonathan Glazers has shown a fascination with fascism and the violence next door that people ignore. While all of Glazer’s films feature the nightmare logic of The Fall, the short film is clearly most in conversation with his 2023 movie, The Zone of Interest. The blaring, shocking soundtrack in The Zone of Interest sounds like it was lifted right from The Fall, but it’s the themes that are most resonant. In The Zone of Interest, the Höss family lives an idyllic life, but right outside their garden walls is the Auschwitz concentration camp.

There is a literal nightmare just on the edge of their lives, and they seem perfectly content with it. This fascist nightmare that killed millions has brought them wealth, prestige, and happiness, and they refuse to give it up, even when instructed to do so by those higher than them. In both The Fall and The Zone of Interest, those on the inside are willfully blind to the chaos and violence imposed on those on the outside. The violence is right there, and yet those inflicting it can take pH๏τos, cheer, and host parties right in front of it.