‘Anatomy d’une chute‘ is the surprise winner of the Palme d’Or trophy at Cannes 2023 and the ‘underdog’ nomination in several key categories at this year’s edition of the Academy Awards. I confess that I have not seen any of the previous films of director Justine Triet, so I was expecting just about anything from the viewing. The surprise is that I watched a mature and balanced film, a psychological thriller combined with a courtroom drama, which despite its two and a half hour duration manages to attract and hold the attention of the viewers (well, of most of them) with well-written dialogues, with situations that develop gradually and become more complex, with interesting characters, well outlined by quality acting performances and without artificiality or extremes. It’s an almost classic film in topic and structure, and if we’re surprised that it’s been successful with juries, critics, and audiences, the problem is probably not the film’s, but ours and of what else we’ve seen lately .
Sandra and Samuel are a couple of writers. They live in a chalet located in a dream position in the mountains surrounding the city of Grenoble. She’s successful, he’s not, and so he supplements his income teaching and renovating part of the house to rent out for B&B. Their son, Daniel, aged about 10-12 years, has very limited vision following an accident in which the father may have had some responsibility. The story begins like a thriller, on a beautiful winter day. Sandra invites a young reporter for an interview. Samuel plays loud music on a loop, disrupting the interview. After the reporter leaves, Sandra goes to rest, while Daniel goes out for a walk with Scoop, their dog. Upon returning, the boy discovers the father’s body, dead after a fall from the balcony or the attic window of the cottage. Accident? Suicide? Crime? The police suspect Sandra, she is investigated and charged. An old friend of hers, a lawyer, is called to defend her. The president of the court decides that Sandra can be released on bail during the trial, but a policewoman will be permanently in the house to avoid the accused mother from influencing her son, a key witness in the trial. From here the film turns into a courtroom drama, and fans of the genre, exposed especially to American films, will delight in the differences between the American and the French court system – much more interactive and freer from a formal point of view in debates and interventions of lawyers, prosecutors and even of the accused. The boy witnesses the trial which turns into a true autopsy of his parents’ marriage. Far from being an ideal marriage, the relationships of the Sandra – Samuel couple seem to exemplify the classic phrase with which Leo Tolstoy’s ‘Anna Karenina’ begins about unhappy families. But are marital disagreements, which seem no more extreme than those that occur in almost any couple, sufficient grounds for murder? And if it wasn’t murder, what happened? Samuel’s psychological profile does not seem to have been exactly suicidal, despite some past therapy and psychiatric treatment. The psychiatrist, the prosecution and defense experts, the investigating policeman are called as witnesses, but the decisive testimony remains that of Daniel – the child forced to relive the whole family drama, amplified to the dimensions of a courtroom.
The thriller part is quite interesting, although not original. Being (also) a consumer of French detective series, I can recall quite a few similar episodes, cleverly solved by television detectives. Justine Triet (who is also the co-screenwriter) did not insist on fully solving the case. Sometimes this is not possible, even after long investigations or trials – this often happens in life. What interested the filmmakers are family relationships, those between mother and child and those between wife and husband that are revealed as the investigation and trial progress. To what extent can even the closest people know each other, communicate and share their feelings? There are visible and invisible communication barriers between the three family members. Samuel is French, Sandra is German. Neither of them speaks the other’s native language well and the couple uses English at home. Daniel is almost blind, but it is precisely the lack of sight that amplifies his other senses and sensitivity. Words hide more than they reveal. None of the characters express their feelings. Interesting decision to use the first names of the actors as names for the heroes of the film. Sandra Hüller is terrific as the writer. At no point do physical evidences of a crime appear, but it is precisely the coldness of her temperament and the language barrier that make her appear suspect in the eyes of both the police and the spectators. Swann Arlaud plays the lawyer, who was in love in his youth and perhaps is still in love with the beautiful but distant woman who is now accused of murder. Daniel is played by Milo Machado-Graner, an experienced child actor cast after searches for an actor with an actual visual impairment failed. Difficult role, perfect execution. ‘Anatomy d’une chute‘ could have easily fallen into a rather banal crime-trial genre film, but it rises above the average by the quality of the script, by the depth of the characters, by the psychological truthfulness and by the good acting. Leo Tolstoy was right again.