Movie Review - Anatomy of a Fall

Director: Justine Triet
Genre: Crime/ Drama/ Thriller
Runtime: 151 minutes
Year: 2023
Starring: Sandra Hüller, Swann Arlaud, Milo Machado Graner, Antoine Reinartz, Samuel Theis, Jehnny Beth, Camille Rutherford

Description: A woman (Sandra Hüller) is suspected of her husband’s murder, and their blind son (Milo Machado Graner) faces a moral dilemma as the main witness.

Review: From the speakers in an attic room in a remote chalet in the French Alps blares the instrumental sounds of 50 Cents P.I.M.P. One of the residents, writer and teacher Sandra Voyter, has to stop talking to one of her students because they can no longer understand each other. Why her husband trains her like this only becomes clear later.

While the music is still playing loudly, their nearly blind son Daniel takes the dog for a walk. When he returns, he finds his father bloodied and lifeless next to the chalet. He has fallen from a great height and suspicion soon falls on Sandra. In the courtroom, we learn more and more about the relationship between Sandra and her husband Samuel, who died under mysterious circumstances.

“Anatomy of a Fall” (Anatomy d’un Chute) was awarded a Palm d’or at the Cannes Film Festival. Director Justine Triet mercilessly files the unfortunate events that led to Samuel’s death, as well as the many rifts in their relationship.

Gradually, it matters less and less what exactly happened. Human nature eager to know exactly what happened still seems to win out at first. For a long time, the trial is concerned with whether Samuel was alive when he crashed. Whether he was dragging himself blooded in the snow. Whether he hit his head against the shed.

Main suspect Sandra has some explaining to do. But also turns out to be a complex character who hides the necessary secrets. Things have grown especially awry between the writer and her husband after a near-fatal accident that has left their son Daniel virtually blind. Samuel himself cannot recount it, but Triet manages to reconstruct the relationship with Sandra using statements from those involved.

She manages to come up with a new element of the relationship every time things threaten to collapse. Extremely painful are the revelations Daniel has to learn from the prosecutor, Sandra’s lawyer and Samuel’s psychiatrist. It eventually leads to an emotional statement from the 11-year-old boy who also seeks some of the blame on himself.

“Anatomy of a Fall” seems founded on interrogations and second-hand statements, but the Triet throws in an audio recording. In all his suspicion and in order to work on a book himself, Samuel captured the last months of his life on tape. In by far the strongest of the many powefull scenes, we see how a calm conversation between Sandra and Samuel eventually degenerates into a series of false accusations. The sympathy turns a hundred and eighty degrees.

The scene illustrates the masterful writing of Triet and co-writer Arthur Harari. It is soon clear that this event has only losers. Young Daniel must put up with all the misery. “Anatomy of a Fall” is one of those rare films in which everything is right, which makes you think and does not let you go soon after.

Rating: 5/ 5