A dead body lays in the snow under an open window at a remote home in the French Alps as an instrumental version of 50 Cent’s hit “P.I.M.P” blares through the house. How did the body get there? Was the victim murdered or did he commit suicide? These are just a couple of the questions Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winning film Anatomy of a Fall tasks the audience to figure out.
Putting the puzzle pieces together, only forms part of the of the film’s alluring picture. Anatomy of a Fall may wear the cloak of a mystery, but as it disrobes it reveals itself to be something more intricate. Triet’s film is far more interested in the complexities of a couple’s intimate relationship, and the ways the judiciary process can often expose shredded strands of those bonds for all to see, than it is with the death itself.
Before one even lay eyes on Samuel’s (Samuel Theis) lifeless body, the first time he is fully shown in the film, the tension his presence causes in the house is felt. As the film opens, the viewer observes his wife Sandra (Sandra Hüller), a German writer, as she attempts to withhold her increasing frustration with him while conducting an interview with a journalist about her life. With the 50 Cent track blaring, it does not take long before the interview is derailed.
As the interviewer leaves, Triet’s camera follows the couple’s visually impaired son Daniel (Milo Machado Graner) as he takes the family dog out for a walk. One does not see what occurs at the house during the brief time that Daniel is away, but Samuel is dead by the time he returns home and Sandra finds herself the prime suspect in the eyes of the law.
Slowly shifting from a murder mystery to a courtroom drama, Triet places audiences in the roll of the jury. Similar to the way her camera moves side-to-side in rhythm with Daniel’s head as he tracks the voices of the rival lawyers, as if following the ball in an invisible tennis match, one is constantly reassessing the couple’s relationship as more information is revealed. Stripping their union to its uncomfortable core, the audience sees the resentment, jealously, insecurity and volatile outbursts that has led to the true fall in the film’s title.
Through Hüller’s brilliant performance, Triet expertly explores not only the dark side of the legal system, but also the ways career ambitions, contempt, and jealously can erode a relationship.
By encasing the decline of a relationship within the confines of a courtroom drama, Anatomy of a Fall manages to soar above many of its contemporaries in the genre. One of the things that Triet captures so well is the way people’s lives are exposed and dissected for the judgment of others. As the prosecution tries to throw every theory at the dart board, regardless of whether the evidence backs up the claims, the toll the case takes on both Sandra and Daniel begin to show.
As the rope that ties mother and son together begins to fray under the pressure of accusations leveled by the court, the film forces the viewer to ponder the lingering damage that is left when the media spectacle ends.
A finely crafted courtroom drama, Anatomy of a Fall finds plenty of tension in the threads that both bind people together and pull them apart.
