Slow burn drama turns white-hot
In Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or-winning film, starring Sandra Hüller and Samuel Theis, a marriage and a death are subject to courtroom scrutiny.
Anatomy of a Fall
★★★★
In cinemas January 25
The plummeting figure in the intriguing French drama Anatomy of a Fall is Samuel Maleski (Samuel Theis), an academic who is a frustrated novelist.
He falls from the attic of the alpine chalet he owns with his wife, successful novelist Sandra Voyter (Sandra Huller). He bounces off a wood shed, hits the snow, drags himself a few metres and dies. He is found by their 11-year-old son Daniel (Milo Machado Graner), who is visually impaired after an accident, and his assistant dog Snoop, who will become an important character.
The autopsy report is inconclusive. The cause of death was a violent blow to the head, either on hitting the wood shed or before Samuel fell. There’s blood spatter where it shouldn’t be.
Sandra is brought to trial. The question the jury must answer is did Samuel somehow slip over the chest-high balcony, commit suicide, or was he pushed?
“I did not kill him,’’ Sandra tells her friend and lawyer, Vincent (Swann Arlaud), who is a bit of a grey fox. He replies, “That’s not the point.”
He thinks convincing the jury it was suicide is the only option. “Nobody will believe he just fell.”
What unfolds is part courtroom drama, part relationship dissection.
And while this is a French language film, a lot of the dialogue is in English as Sandra, like the actor who plays her, is German and is more comfortable defending herself in English.
There is a key piece of evidence Sandra does not know about in advance.
There is an audio recording her husband made of a fight they had the night before he died.
As it is played in the courtroom, what we see is the two of them, on the night, having that argument, up to a point.
We do not see the end, when one or both becomes physically violent.
There is deep resentment over the cause of their son’s accident. There’s friction between the bestselling novelist and the wannabe writer. There’s sexual tension, as Sandra is bisexual.
It’s an exchange I suspect a lot of viewers will relate to in some way. “She is only guilty of succeeding where her husband failed,’’ Vincent tells the jury.
It is an outstanding scene that goes to the innovative approach of French director Justine Triet, who co-wrote the script with her screenwriter husband Arthur Harrari.
There are interesting moments where the camera lingers in unexpected places, such as Snoop’s face as the paramedics try to revive Samuel. There’s also a fascinating exploration of autofiction. Sandra writes novels drawn from her life. When the prosecutor reads from one of them, in which a woman plans the murder of the husband, the defence lawyer interjects.
“Is Stephen King a serial killer?” he asks sarcastically. The prosecutor (Antoine Reinartz) calmly replies, “Did his wife end up dead in the snow?”
The film, which won the Palme d’Or at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival is a slow-burn drama that becomes white hot.
In the courtroom it’s a detailed examination of how a trial is run. Everyone ends up on the stand. The young Graner, as the son, is brilliant throughout but particularly when he is cross-examined.
Outside the courtroom, in the real world of marriage, parenting, sexuality and professional ambition and frustration, it’s far more complicated.