Anatomy of a Fall (2023)

 

You shouldn’t need to watch the brilliant Anatomy of a Fall (original title: Anatomie d’une chute) to realize that trials don’t truly determine guilt or innocence. They tend to be more about whose story is more plausible or possible. Take it from someone who’s been called for jury duty far more than I deserved. This film – made by French filmmakers, but featuring French and quite a lot of English – winds up being as much of an examination of a marriage as an attempt to determine whether or not someone is responsible for a person’s death. What is most unsettling is that the film doesn’t provide a necessarily clear answer to the questions that it raises.

The scenario that begins the film is relatively simple. A famous writer, Sandra Voyter (the sublime Sandra Huller), is being interviewed by a young woman, but her husband is playing very loud and quite annoying music upstairs. The couple’s son, who is visually impaired, leaves with his guide dog (a delightful animal performance, frankly) to go for a walk in the woods near their isolated cabin home. It’s very difficult for the two women to continue talking, so the interviewer leaves. Sandra goes to lie down. When the son returns from his walk, he discovers his father dead in the snow. Whether he has fallen or been pushed is not immediately apparent.

What follows is an interesting examination of what might be considered evidence of an accidental death or suicide or murder. Much of the evidence that the police investigators gather is, frankly, rather inconclusive. It doesn’t completely look like his death is an accident, but where is the definitive proof that Sandra is responsible? She hires a French attorney, an old played by the impossibly handsome Swann Arlaud, to represent her since she’s German and needs someone who is more fluent in French than she is. She prefers using English since that was the “common” language she and her French husband used.

Sandra’s trial occurs a year after the fall, and it features several reenactments of what happened or what might have happened. Of course, it’s not easy to know whether what we’re seeing in the reenactment is what truly happened on not. We do get to hear an audio recording of a fight from day before the husband’s death. Apparently, their relationship had deteriorated so much that he had begun recording their conversations – no, that’s not odd behavior at all on his part, is it? A lot gets revealed during that audiotape. For example, we learn that the father is responsible for the son having optic nerve damage since he wasn’t taking care of the boy like he was supposed to. Sandra, as you might expect, was very upset at the time.

We also learn that Sandra is bisexual and had an affair with a woman during her marriage. This was apparently an area of serious contention between the couple, and he seems to have attempted suicide by overdosing on aspirin six months earlier. The audiotape of the argument shows just how relentless the deceased was in discussing what was making him unhappy. She was a successful writer, but he never seemed to be able to finish his work. She even took an idea of his and turned it into a book, and that no doubt made him even more jealous. He’s clearly frustrated with some of the choices that he’s made – or, at least, that is what we interpret from the flashback of the argument. Again, we do have to wonder if what we’re seeing is a completely accurate representation.

We do get some of the usual courtroom antics. The prosecutor is particularly tough on Sandra and the others who give testimony. He keeps raising scenarios that are plausible or possible or maybe even likely, but again, where is the evidence? Each side has their own “experts” to explain such matters as what the blood splatter reveals. That portion of the movie is really quite intriguing to watch since it does replicate rather accurately how the different sides often try to tear down the case being built by the opposition.

Sandra, however, is very tough. She’s also very smart and always has another take on what an alternative perspective on the evidence could be. She remains mostly calm and composed during the testimony, and she doesn’t back down when challenged. The audiotape reveals that she was the same way when arguing with her husband. The tricky part of playing the role of Sandra, which Huller does so masterfully, is that you have to seem both innocent and guilty at the same time. We’re constantly having to reassess what we know or what we think we know about what happened on the day of the fall and even throughout their entire relationship.

The trial depends, ultimately, on the testimony given by their son, Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner in a remarkable performance for such a young actor). He comes to a realization during the trial, and his testimony is central to the outcome. We see him in profile quite often during the trial sequences, as if to suggest that he keeps changing sides in his mind as to what to believe, and we see several moments where he interacts with his mother. It’s tough to determine, really, just how affectionate she is with him, but she does break down when he asks her to leave their home for the weekend so that he can think before his testimony. It’s a heartbreaking moment because she doesn’t know what he’s thinking at that point or what he will say. Which of those things most upset her is impossible to determine.

The performances in Anatomy of a Fall are all first-rate, and the screenplay keeps us guessing. The story goes that the film’s director and co-writer, Justine Triet, would never tell Huller whether or not her character was guilty, leaving her to perform the role with a high level of ambiguity. We as viewers have that same ambiguity. When the film ends, we’re not sure if justice has been served or not, but perhaps we remember that trials don’t always end with justice truly being served anyway.

Oscar Win: Best Original Screenplay

Other Oscar Nominations: Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Achievement in Directing (Justine Triet), Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Sandra Huller), and Best Achievement in Film Editing