Anatomy of a Fall [2023] – ★★★★1/2

An intelligent, nuanced, attentive and very much focused courtroom drama with some remarkable performances.

A dissection of one mysterious death following a fall morphs into a dissection of a person’s character, relationship and marriage in Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winner – Anatomy of a Fall. Sandra Voyter (Sandra Hüller) is a wife, mother and writer living with her family somewhere in the French Alps. She has just finished being interviewed in her home for her new book when a tragedy strikes: her partner Samuel Maleski (Samuel Theis) meets his death just outside the family home. Apparently, he suffered a head trauma and it also looks like he has fallen from a window, but what really happened? Sandra’s friend and lawyer Vincent Renzi (Swann Arlaud) starts helping the bereaved woman to disentangle this tricky situation as her visually-impaired son Daniel (Milo Machado Graner) may also hide some useful information.

When we first see the film’s opening sequence of Sandra being interviewed by another woman in her home, we hardly even imagine the significance these scenes would have on the rest of the film’s events and developments. But, it would have – much. The film forces us not to be indifferent to each scene, but does so in such a subtle and surreptitious way, we hardly notice the magic at work.

Anatomy of a Fall is not the only recent French film to focus on the pitfalls in the Francophone legal system or detective work as La Syndicaliste with Isabelle Huppert also drew on the possible miscarriage of justice involving a woman and a mother who is convicted of “making up” her crime . Similar circumstances surround Anatomy of a Fall, which looks at a court investigating the death of a person and indicting a grieving wife. However, Triet’s presentation is much more nuanced, her lens is sharper, and the set up in Anatomy of a Fall is much more thought-provoking. It is said that it is better to have ten guilty men go than to convict one innocent one, but what if Sandra is really the killer of her husband? Did her son really hear something that fateful day that he should not have?

Hüller’s remarkably dedicated performance ensures that the film maintains its intrigue and interest until the very end. The astonishing feature here is that the actress manages to keep her character both “hidden” and “open” at the same time. We clearly see this person, a mother who tries to do her best, a wife who clearly cared for her husband, a writer with a career and an expat who lives in a foreign-to-her-environment. However, does she hide something? Is there something more disturbing, perhaps more selfish, in her personality? What kind of a person she really is? One scene makes us sympathise with Sandra after the tragic death of her husband, while another probably shows a more selfish side to her and her relationship with her husband. Triet and Huller constantly plant doubts in our minds, ensuring intrigue, while, at the same time keeping the motive, theme and story very much grounded, almost documentary-like.

Law-wise unbelievability aside (no court in the world would surely dissect or stretch so many irrelevant points of a murder case as lawyers and judges in this film so clearly do (and this is not a The Outsider (by Camus) adaptation)), the film generally fares well as a legal drama. It is true that the film does not do anything that has not been done before in the “courtroom drama” area: we hear how “a trial is not about the truth, but one’s perception of the truth”, and Sandra’s dirty linen starts to be washed in public when she becomes a suspect. But, the way Triet brings to light the many curious instances of this case and Sandra’s character traits is a thing of beauty. The negative aspects of Sandra personality, past, books and marriage are unearthed by the investigation as points that could indicate (so very remotely) her involvement in her husband’s death. But, what would be the result of this consideration? And, then, Samuel used to record their daily talking. What tape did he leave behind to shed clue on his death? Sandra and Samuel definitely had a tricky relationship, but, in what kind of a world we live in if a turbulent relationship automatically equates murder upon the death of one’s partner?

🏔️ Anatomy of a Fall is a film that concerns itself primarily with a process, rather than a destination, being an engrossing piece of film-making that actually does what few legal dramas do nowadays – pays very close attention to what it is portraying or trying to portray. There are no gimmicks here, useless side characters or unnecessary plot deviations or devices – just pure cinematic story-telling that questions what really happened and why.