ANATOMY OF A FALL

"My love. I just want you to know that I'm not the monster, you know. Everything you hear in the trail it's just... it's twisted. It wasn't like that." - Sandra Voyter

Among the isolated French Alps and between the subjective lines of an author’s fictional novels, a veritable courtroom drama sparks national attention. Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winning film Anatomy of a Fall shines a light on domestic descent. An assessment of a man’s death quickly transforms a familiar trope into a blazing pathway of self reflection and accountability. Triet subtly knows no bounds in her deconstruction of a torn marriage and the stain it leaves outside their attic window. Forensic science and physiological analysis abound, Anatomy of a Fall ensconces emotional impassivity within layers of literal objectivity.   

Opening on an interview in her wood-modern mountain home, Sandra (Sandra Huller) evades personal questions about her famed literary work, flirtatiously appointing the interviewer far more interesting while she peppers her with her own curiosity. Loud music from levels above starts passive-aggressively blaring, forcing Sandra to admit her husband, Samuel, sometimes does this while he works in the attic and dismisses the derailing nature of it. Wine glass in hand and Samuel remaining unseen, Sandra not-so-regretfully deems the interview a loss. A seemingly tension-drenched interviewer reading between the lines of husband and wife politely excuses herself as Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner), their young, almost entirely blind son, leaves to walk their dog Snoop. When he returns, he finds his dead father sprawled in the snow three stories below the attic window. As Daniel screams for his mother, police show up to collect evidence and indict Sandra on murder charges. Triet has already lamented in the simplest terms what the audience will find. Anatomy of a Fall is not only an investigation into a man’s death, or a testimony to the agonies of a failing marriage and the decline of a husband’s mental health, it reveals the lives castigated in the courtroom and what they each experienced is left up to one thing: interpretation.

Anatomy of a Fall operates in a realm of subjectivity. Triet abolishes the standard case-building trope with no emotionally invested savant investigator or goose-chase clue hunting. The audience becomes the prosecutor and prosecuted, with the burden of sifting through the evidence and coming to their own conclusion. Triet’s subtly immersing us in said position without us being aware of it crashes down in the moments following Samuel’s death. Something did feel off, Sandra’s interview did seem to be unprofessional, a taut eeriness did present itself when Samuel’s disapproval blared by way of “P.I.M.P.” by 50 Cent, and thus the audience launches into a psychoanalytic journey we unwittingly started when the first line of the film was uttered, “What do you want to know?” 

The film hurls into an invasive rehashing of events leading up to and during the supposed murder. Every decision and marital shortcoming is scrutinized, but never witnessed. Audio recordings, secondhand recounts and professional assessments form opinions about Sandra and the deficiency she withstood during her marriage. Samuel’s therapist claims he was never suicidal. Sandra’s interviewer admits she felt the informality and potential of being hit on during the interview. Daniel’s recollection of a verbal argument before Samuel’s death is questioned. One tactic of the film implies that versions of ourselves are interpreted differently and remembered differently based on who and how we choose to show and remember it. With no eye witnesses or concrete evidence, Triet creates a scenario of observation and insinuation. Do we, the audience, learning of Sandra’s cheating, her arguably selfish career tactics, and stoic apprehension regarding Samuel’s unhappiness, believe she is capable of murdering her husband? Circumstantial evidence puts Sandra’s personality on trial, her actions and past mistakes shaping an event the audience is still struggling to acquit or damn her for.  

In the realm of persuasion, Triet forfeits any guidance in either direction, the elements of the case divulging not only a waring matrimony but a waring ethical decision. Samuel and Sandra’s marriage presents itself as one of compromise and resentment. A French writer and a German author move to the husband’s childhood town in his home country, speaking English with their son as a middle-ground concession. Accusations get tossed around and blame thrown like daggers over their son’s preventable accident. Work-life balance and career success burn bridges and question parental responsibility. Self-inflicted circumstances bubble to the surface that question a parent’s duty to their children and demand reflection on the allowance of self-service. An audio clip plays out a verbal altercation that turns physical, a resentful husband and an unyielding wife blaming the other for their unhappiness. The death looms over the courtroom as breaking glass and echoing slaps become secondary to the tumultuous and raw accusations hurtling at each other. Both arguments hold weight, both broken in their seclusion and rage, and we the audience become no closer to siding with one or the other. 

What is heard and analyzed but not seen is juxtaposed by Huller’s conceptualized performance. An absolutist resolve brokers minimal support in Sandra’s initial court questioning, Huller abstains from fully recognizing the severity of her potential role in her husband’s death and the full scope of historical evidence used to nitpick her marriage. Tight breaths and furrowed brows etch Huller’s responses in her confusion and frankness in her failing marriage, a part she takes no responsibility for. Triet and Huller, with words and acting, corner us in a suspended state of uncertainty. The issue isn’t whether or not she did it, but rather one of transformation. It is with that change that Huller’s performance transcends, becoming a widow not of defensiveness and blame, but one of understanding and reflection. Forcing her to speak her third language (French), relive her marriage’s pitfalls, and separating her from her son, pressure Sandra to confront Samuel’s point of view, his internalized suffering, and demands her acceptance and recognition in the toxic environment she helped create. Huller’s trepidation blooms across the screen as a tightly wound potential murderer sheds her hard-edged self-righteousness for a protective, atoned mother.    

And while Huller’s performance is one for the ages, Daniel’s testimony is the axis on which the film rotates. The central theme of perception, while literally portrayed by his blindness, forced upon Daniel demands he analyze elements of his parent’s marriage leading up to the day of his father’s death. Misremembering a fight that occurred the day of and where he was standing is one thing, but questioning his mother’s role in Samuel’s deterioration adds layers of emotional complexity. Daniel recalls conversations he had with his father in a different light after his exposure to the trial and his mother’s own information. Conducting his own experiment to ease his suspicions, Daniel bravely circumvents his own biases in order to interpret the bread crumbs his father left for him. The nuances of infidelity, depression and sacrifice intensifies ten fold through the damaged eyes of a child. Triet doesn’t shy away from the agony saturating the courtroom and their mountain home while Daniel pieces together his own conclusions and the crowning testimony that seals his mother’s fate. Anatomy of a Fall holds itself accountable in portraying the biggest party affected by domestic downfalls: the kids.

Sometimes the answer isn’t the one desired. Triet leaves us to our own aggrievement as the verdict is read, and to her chagrin, neither guilty nor innocent would have eased the ripples of doubt thrown at us like heavy stones in a river. Downfalls come in varying shapes and sizes, but it's quite tragic when it takes the death of a father for the mother to admit she was wrong and for the son to finally see his parents clearly. Human fallibility is served on a silver platter in the court of law, and as the sharp knives of scrutiny shred defendants into scraps of bone and gristle, all that remains is the opinions and judgements of those who gorged on their tearful dissection.