Director: Justine Triet
Writers: Arthur Harari and Justine Triet
Stars: Sandra Hüller, Swann Arlaud, Milo Machado Graner
Synopsis: A woman is suspected of her husband’s murder, and their blind son faces a moral dilemma as the sole witness.
With her fourth feature film, the Palme d’Or-winning Anatomy of a Fall (Anatomie d’une chute), French filmmaker Justine Triet delivers an intelligent and engrossing courtroom drama that uses the tropes contained within these types of films to dissect the fragility in our bonds and the effects (and vulnerability) of manipulation. And it is all hoisted on the back of Triet’s piercing, yet delicate, pen and Sandra Hüller’s remarkable performance.
Throughout the last couple of years in her young (and blooming) career, French Filmmaker Justine Triet has made a name for herself, with each feature showing a new array of skills and delicate playfulness in her directorial approach. She has presented to us a breezy romcom with In Bed With Victoria – her most straightforward work) – as well as Sibyl, an understated dramedy that contains erotic-thriller trappings via a love triangle, both of which coincidentally stars the international “it girl” Virginie Efira. If you look at her filmography, you quickly see the changes she has made to her craft, each time taking more risks. However, none of us were prepared to see her most significant transformation to date with her fourth picture, Anatomy of a Fall – a courtroom drama lifted by its smart screenplay and even savvier lead performance.
The international title of this film refers back to one of the most recognized courtroom dramas in the history of cinema, Anatomy of a Murder, as well as the aftermath of the central narrative kickstarter of a deadly fall. But its references toward the aforementioned film end there; it adjusts the tropes that come with these types of films to deliver a dissection of not only the death that leads to the trial but also how fragility and manipulation get a hold over a person in this situation, in which loss blinds and people try to mend the truth for their convenience. This leads to Triet delivering her best (by a mile wide) and most emotionally gripping work. Of course, courtroom dramas are often forged to be gripping. But Triet doesn’t construct Anatomy of a Fall in the manner we anticipate, without the crowd-pleasing moments and the back-and-forth of people who want to reveal the most secrets.
She does so with a sense of delicateness in her pen and humanism in her lens; it’s carefully thought out and more controlled than most recent examples of these movies. Anatomy of a Fall opens with an interview between a writer, Sandra (Hüller), and a student (Camille Rutherford) asking questions for her thesis. This interaction, set in Sandra’s remote Alpine home in the “middle of nowhere” (which is also being fixed as an Airbnb) has plenty of flirtatious undertones. And Sandra doesn’t mind, even with the double-entendres. She likes the lighthearted attention the pupil is giving her, hence her overzealous question: “What Do You Want to Know?”. Sandra is flattered by it all. What this inconsequential and short scene does is provide a quick glimpse into who Sandra is and how Hüller plays her with such believable raw emotions. This can also be accredited to Triet’s talent as a screenwriter.
One of her many gifts is revealing her characters’ personalities in an unhurried and airy fashion so that we can be drawn to them. This was present in Triet’s previous features, as well. Still, her latest work is even better executed, more evident, and precise, making every story beat – and dialogue sequence that comes in between – get the most out of the human characteristics. Sandra lives with her husband Samuel (Samuel Theis) and their son Daniel (Milo Machado Graneral), who’s almost completely blind because of an accident at his father’s company. Sandra and Samuel’s dynamic is quite tricky; while the former is prosperous in her writing, the latter is a struggling (and depressed) teacher who blames his wife for botching his own writing success. She’s entirely put off by her husband’s self-loathing, the two often fighting about the shameless emotional antics that Samuel goes through. There’s also a bit of resentment coming from Samuel, as he states that Sandra has plagiarized some of his ideas for her own books.
Of course, there’s an understanding between the two regarding emotional stability. But Sandra is still bothered by his doubts. After this series of introductory events that gives us our first look at this family’s dynamics, Samuel’s dead body is discovered in the snow with a pile of blood beneath his head. And nobody knows what exactly happened, whether he was pushed or jumped from the roof onto his untimely death. This is where the film’s interview-like procedure begins. Over the next two-and-a-half hours, Justine Triet pulls us into the schematics of a trial. She doesn’t put the entirety of her focus on the facts in the case itself. Instead, Triet wants to pick apart the main suspect, Sandra, and demonstrate what lies beneath her fractured relationship with her now-passed husband and the possibilities of what could have happened to him.
You fill in the many gaps in Sandra and her relationship with her son and husband. The lawyer’s questioning explores the good and bad terms of their respective relationships. A question leads to an answer told in the form of a flashback or a recent memory of hers that’s being fiddled with because of the conservatory manipulation. That’s why when Triet withholds information, it isn’t just for the sake of being ambiguous; she holds on to it so that later on, those crucial details garner a more piercing impact on the viewer, often making you think about the characters’ moralities and what’s going through their head as it unravels. One thing that stands out from this specific courtroom drama is that you are so engaged in the dynamics between these characters, particularly the development (and deterioration) of Sandra and Samuel’s marriage, that one doesn’t really care about whether or not she is guilty – the regret and shame come from what happened in the past rather than the trial itself.
The brilliance behind this time-meddling structure between the past (glimpses of her marriage) and present (the trial) delivers a heavy exposure to the effects of manipulation, primarily to an unknowledgeable court – who’s being influenced by newly shaped words that create new (and false) truths. All of this may seem like it is quite simplistic surface-wise – on paper, feeling like one of the many. However, as the trial goes on, Triet pulls out a fascinating array of web-like deconstructions of family and interpersonal dynamics. It doesn’t contain itself within the confines of what we know of courtroom dramas; Triet chooses to expand her vision by crossing genres – intertwining heartbreak and comedy occasionally – and emotions, in addition to the surprises that arise as Anatomy of a Fall runs its course, albeit not in the sense of traditional dramatic reversals commonly seen in these types of pictures.
Apart from Justine Triet’s ever-evolving talents as a filmmaker, the film equally relies on Sandra Hüller and her reserved, direct, yet calm performance. The movie grows alongside her acting abilities, consistently presenting a solid force of dramatic sustainability. Her work here doesn’t serve as an anchor that holds the film steady. But it is pretty difficult seeing how Anatomy of a Fall would have worked with another actor, as the role demands plenty. And Hüller makes the best of it without the regular over-emotional and way too whipsmart antics, relying on a more grounded tenor for her portrayal. When you see Triet’s past work, you could have never guessed she had this in her, developing a more mature directorial vision for her genre-crossing pen. Indeed, we will have to wait and see if she continues on this path of directing methodical pictures that play with the tropes of a fairly-used subgenre in narrative cinema.
