There’s a gruesome, bloody death in the elongated opening of director/co-writer Justine Triet’s Anatomy Of A Fall that leads to the murder case at the center of the film. However, the French filmmaker and her co-writer Arthur Harari start setting the scene long before the titular tumble, ratcheting up the tension within the first few minutes when an awkward interview at the home of author Sandra Voyter (Sandra Hüller) is interrupted by a steel drum cover of 50 Cent’s “P.I.M.P” played at an abrasive volume. This brilliantly puts the audience on edge and that perfectly calibrated suspense is sustained throughout the picture, even in the courtroom setting that dominates the film—an impressive feat given that procedurals can be staid and aesthetically dull.
The German-born Sandra is an author whose novels blend reality and fiction. However, she’ll soon wish that her own reality were fiction. She’s recently settled into a remote mountaintop chalet in France, uprooting her life in London to move back to the hometown of her author/teacher husband Samuel (Samuel Theis) with their vision-impaired 11-year-old son Daniel (Milo Machado Graner) and good dog Snoop (Messi). But on a frigid winter day, everything changes for their family when Snoop and Daniel, who’d been out on a walk, discover Samuel’s dead body in the snow beneath the third-story window of their home.
What initially presents itself as an open-and-shut case of accidental death—Samuel becoming disoriented by the blasting music and slipping out the window while putting up insulation—develops into a homicide investigation as the blood splatter tells a different story. Making matters worse, the autopsy results are inconclusive. Sandra is fingered as the prime suspect since she was the only adult home at the time and she has no credible alibi. She knows she didn’t do it, but can’t fathom it’s suicide either as she assumes Samuel’s mindset was healthy and their marriage was in a good place. As the trial commences with her lawyer and friend Vincent (Swann Arlaud) by her side, new information comes to light that, once again, upends Sandra and Daniel’s worlds.
Triet and Harari thread the needle nicely, incorporating Sandra’s entire identity as something to scrutinize, like a modern-day witch trial. Her femininity, sexuality, domesticity, psychological profile, and career ambitions are all brought up to cast aspersions and establish motivations. Even her German heritage and British emigration are used to demonstrate a perceived rejection of the French people and language, and to paint her as non-smiling, unhappy, and unkind. There’s also a distinct undercurrent of sexism brought into the courtroom by the lead male prosecutor, who accuses her of the alleged crimes. The juxtaposition of both mother and child’s perspectives, bringing in Daniel’s observations and opinions, add to the ensuing suspense surrounding the events and interpersonal parent-child dynamic.
Triet treats production and sound design as part of the layered storytelling process. Her use of sound unlocks character memories as well as unnerves our senses—both in the opening scene and in the courtroom when one of Samuel’s secret recordings is played. The latter begins on the disembodied audio of the married couple in their kitchen, and we see courtroom reactions before it flashes back to Sandra’s perspective on what is being heard. It’s a damning piece of evidence, not only because it might implicate Sandra in Samuel’s death, but because it’s a soul-shattering technological talisman of their marital strife produced for people to judge. Plus, their family home being in a state of renovation is symbolic of their marriage needing repair after a tragedy involving Daniel years prior.
After Hüller’s scene-stealing supporting turn in Triet’s Sibyl playing a director at her wit’s end, the creative team’s reunion is equally as revelatory, potent, and meaningful. Triet gives her leading lady the space to not only build the character—molding her delicately faceted neuroses, strengths, and vulnerabilities out of the script’s clay—but she also provides the grace notes with which she delivers the goods. Hüller is tender and tough, turning in a towering performance.
With her film, which captured the Palme d’Or at Cannes earlier this year, Triet balances this authentic brilliance with a modicum of bombast, or at least what might seem as such for American audiences. Because our judicial system works differently, it can be surprising to not hear more objections by the defense lobbed at the prosecution, who dig deep into Sandra’s past to try to expose her as a guilty party. It’s also surprising to hear interjections by those not on the stand, as well as long-winded stories that could be taken as hearsay, one of which involves a brief bit of dog peril.
With its provocative commentary on the mutating nature of grief and guilt, Anatomy Of A Fall pulls back the curtain on the complex inner workings of marital and parental relationships. It’s a precise study of how strife and conflict metastasize if left unresolved. And by grounding these fine-tuned dramatics in the guise of a genre picture, it works to profound effect.
Anatomy Of A Fall opens in theaters in New York and Los Angeles on October 13