Accidental death, suicide or murder? Based on that disturbing question, typical of the most classic police plots, Justine Triet builds in ‘Anatomy of a fall’ (‘Anatomie d’une chute’) a fast-paced procedural puzzle that not only makes its protagonist take the stage, a highly dedicated Sandra Hüller in the role of Sandra Voyter, but also dissects the crisis of a marriage and its most damaging dynamics.
Triet’s proposal (‘The Battle of Solférino’, ‘Sybil’s Reflection’) thus speaks of a double fall and a double dissection. First, the fall that has ended the life of Samuel (Samuel Theis), whose causes are the subject of the film’s trial; and second, that of the leading couple, subjected, in turn, to the scrutiny of the court as if it were a forensic examination.
You have to be careful in the Triet film, since its starting sequence is important, although not decisive, for what is developed later when the ambiguity of the facts and the alibis make the oral trial inevitable. Also because in that apparently banal scene, Triet already points out the thesis of his story: the difficulty of discerning between reality and fiction, between wishes and facts.
‘Anatomy of a fall’: a device of irreproachable efficiency
With the precision of a Swiss watchmaker, the French director puts together in ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ a story so consistent and rhythmic that it is hard to find cracks in it. Obviously, the analysis that she proposes is not going to be the definitive procedural of the trial genre, but Triet is very intelligent, not only dosing the mystery, but rather elaborating the suspense of a plot delivered to point out the prejudices that put Sandra under suspicion.
If the first part of the film presents the characters and their context Sandra (Sandra Hüller) and Samuel (samuel theis), a couple of writershave been living with their son Daniel for a year (Milo Machado Graner), visually impaired, in a remote mountain town in the Grenoble area), the second section, one year after the event, is dedicated entirely to the judicial process.
For the eyes of a Spanish woman, the representation of French justice in the films of that country is more than striking. In Spain, the procedure as such tends to be quite practical, at times boring and somewhat flat, while we are well aware of the theater that is set up in the United States according to what judgments. In any case, French fiction seems to have translated the way American judgments are made, with moments that are even more tendentiousif it fits.
Antoine Reinartz is annoyingly outstanding in his role as (literal) inquisitor prosecutor, putting under public scrutiny the private life of a marriage that, like a good part of the sentimental ties, had moments of crisis. The film is quite smart in offsetting the hatred that character can arouse with the series of tests that make us suspicious of the protagonist. Who is lying, the unsympathetic prosecutor or the cold and ambitious defendant?
Much more than a judicial film
Perhaps on paper Triet’s film may not unfold its full potential, but seen on the big screen we recognize it as a remarkable exercise in suspense. Its two sections intercommunicate with each other (the film undoubtedly deserves a second viewing, or even more) and, in order to improve the visual machinery of the judicial genre, Triet provides a series of ingenious visual solutions that deserve to be discovered by viewers. viewers.
Similarly, the secondary gallery is carefully constructed. At times, some of them are too functional -Marge (Jehnny Beth) or Daniel, the child-, although others accompany the development of the protagonist in an organic wayas the defense attorney, played by Swann Arlaud.
Be that as it may, ‘Anatomy of a fall’ is one of the favorites when it comes to being on the list of winners of the 2023 Cannes Film Festival is concerned. One of the possible awards that she would make happy is the award for Best Female Performance for Hüller (‘Toni Erdmann’), since the German has doubled this year as the lead also in ‘The Zone of Interest’, by Jonathan Glazer. Will they reward her talent for her work in Triet or for the British director’s film?
In Espinof | The best lawyer series on Netflix, HBO, Amazon and Movistar+