Movies…with a little bit of obscure culture and sports mixed in
Anatomy Of A Fall (2023) is a hard film to grasp. It’s a good movie, there is no denying that. But how good? That’s a question I’ve been asking myself and I can’t seem to land on a good answer.
“A woman is suspected of murder after her husband’s death; their half-blind son faces a moral dilemma as the main witness.”
Director: Justine Triet
Writer: Arthur Harari, Justine Triet
Starring: Sandra Hüller, Swann Arlaud, Milo Machado-Graner, antoine Reinartz, Samuel Theis, Jehnny Beth
Release Date: September 22, 2023
IMDB
Anatomy Of A Fall (2023) is a hard film to grasp. It’s a good movie, there is no denying that. But how good? That’s a question I’ve been asking myself and I can’t seem to land on a good answer.
You watch Anatomy Of A Fall the first time and the performance by Sandra Hüller washes over you. Anyone can get swept away with the French courtroom sequences and the lawyering process. The screenplay has dialogue that weaves a mystery, and characters that generate sympathy and anxiety. However, while the screenplay can delve in the opaque from time-to-time, there are few times it bashes the audiences on the head with a frying pan seasoned in bluntness.
Sandra Hüller plays Sandra Voyter, a woman accused of murdering her husband. With no eyewitness and the evidence lacking definitive traits, Voyter finds herself in the middle of a French courtroom attempting to defend her innocence. Over the course of the trail, hidden truths about Voyter and her husband’s relationship come to life. The slow unpeeling of an uneasy marriage is made tougher for Sandra knowing that her half-blind son Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner) is learning things about his parents and life itself that he can never unlearn. As the verdict approaches, Daniel finds himself in a moral quandary as a key witness to the aftermath of the murder.
Let’s start off with Daniel. It’s not breaking news that this child was inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s interpretation of Stephen King’s, The Shining. The look. The clothes. The stare. All of it is there for the audience to see if they can make the connection.
Daniel is half-blind, and seeing as the star character witness and the first to find his dead dad’s body, the fact he can’t see everything is rather important. It’s big not only in a tangible sense, but also in a symbolic one. The famous patron Lady Justice is blindfolded, implying that she, and the system itself, does not perceive based on appearance.
When I was watching Anatomy Of A Fall for the first time, the fact that Daniel was blind really irked me. In a movie that prides itself on not giving a definitive answer, this symbolic character choice is equivalent to the screenplay taking a megaphone and screaming to the audience “HEY, YOU SEE HE IS BLIND? YOU SEE HOW JUSTICE SYSTEM IS MEANT TO BE BLIND TO PREJUDICE? YOU SEE HOW IT’S PLAYING ON THAT NOTION BUT TWISTING IT BY MAKING THE SON OF THE WOMAN BEING CONVICTED?”
Now, after the fact, I have listened to numerous podcasts about the movie that have me questioning my thoughts. Smarter folks than I bring up theories that Anatomy Of A Fall is meant to have a very subtle dark comedic tone which makes the crazy story itself more absurd. If you have a knowledge of the French court system, the trial portion of Anatomy Of A Fall takes many liberties with its process and theatrics. Having no knowledge of such, I thought it was only a tinged over-played, but that is my ignorance affecting my viewing, and therefore my tonal understanding of what Justine Triet was going for.
This whole debate reminds me of the first presidential debate that was aired on both the radio and television. I know this is a divergence, but stick with me, because this random U.S. history high school class did.
In 1960, Robert Nixon debated John F. Kennedy leading up to the presidential election. Following the first debate, which 65 million people watched (holy shit), there was a distinct divide amongst the voting body. Those who watched the debate on TV were far more likely to vote for JFK, but those who listened to the radio thought that Nixon won the event.
The idea of an event happening but one’s perception being different based on how it’s taken in is at the heart of Anatomy Of A Fall. We see how Sandra Voyter acts before and after the alleged crime is committed. Daniel can’t see how his mother is acting. He can only hear and take in what others are saying. It’s a matter of perspective.
So, thinking about all of this after the fact, does it change my thoughts on Anatomy Of A Fall? Perhaps? Maybe a little? Besides being humbled, my thoughts surrounding the movie stay pretty much the same.
Sandra Hüller, have yourself a year. I touched on her remarkable year during my review for The Zone Of Interest (2023) and my rankings of the latest Best Actress Oscar nominations, but it’s worth remarking again that the German actress had a year to remember. While Anatomy Of A Fall is not as good a film as The Zone Of Interest, Hüller has many more opportunities to showcase her as a potential husband-killer.
Right from the jump, Anatomy Of A Fall makes it a point for the audience to be confused by Sandra Voyter. Is she flirting with this reporter that is trying to ask her questions? Why is she drinking wine so aggressively, so early? Immediately putting the viewers on their back heels sets the tone for the entire movie. The distrust at the start is evened out later with the courtroom scenes where we see Voyter re-live and share emotional moments. The question I’m asking myself while the trial is underway is where is her sadness coming from; is it coming from a failed marriage that is not permanently fractured, or is it coming from the fact that her son is now learning all the dark, dirty secrets about his parents?
I’ll reuse a fun fact here. Justine Triet did not tell Hüller whether or not the character she was portraying was guilty or not. It wasn’t in the script and was never talked about as background. Hüller lived in judicial purgatory when playing the role.
But with that being said, there is no way that Sandra Voyter didn’t do it. She absolutely murdered her husband.
If you polled America, the majority of individuals wouldn’t know any of the actors in Anatomy Of A Fall, but they would know the dog. Messi, who plays the part of Snoop in the movie, walked the red carpet and became the bell of the ball. Messi was used as a campaign tool, because who doesn’t love to pet a dog when it’s in front of them?
Now here’s the thing. I am not a dog person. Sympathy was not churning through my veins when the dog was dying because of Daniel’s inadvertent poisoning. Sorry if that offends, but the dog is not one of the top traits of the movie.
Special shoutout should be paid to the lawyers. Not many times that’s been written out before, am I right? (I know, a terrible joke).
Maître Vincent Renzi, played by Swan Arlaud, is the lawyer defending Voyter in the trial. His friendship with the accused is tinged with a will they or won’t they type of tension. Credit to Arlaud and Hüller for toeing that balance nicely.
Then there is Antoine Reinartz, who is playing the prosecutor, Avocat Général. Leading up to the 96th Academy Awards, I am upset that I didn’t have Reinartz in my own shortlist for Best Supporting Actor. I can still picture the facial expressions, and oh how expressive they are. The tenor of his voice and the way he questions the all involved is nearing comedic levels. His performance changed my mind most when hearing analysis of the screenplay after the fact.
Anatomy Of A Fall was nominated for five Academy Awards, and took home the trophy for Best Original Screenplay. It was also in the running for Best Picture, Best Directing, Best Actress, and Best Film Editing.
While the movie Anatomy Of A Fall confounded me on its own, so did its path to the Oscars. How is it that the movie can be nominated for Best Picture, but not Best International Picture?
Based on some cursory research, here is what I’ve been able to figure out. The French committee in charge of selecting the film to send to the Academy for consideration chose The Taste Of Things (2023) as France’s official nomination. While I have not seen the film, I have heard only great things about it. With that being said, there appears to be some real-world politics that prevented Justine Triet and company from not getting another nod.
Justine Triet won the Palme d’Or award at the Cannes Film Festival. The most prestigious honor that one could take home. When accepting the award, Triet was not shy about criticizing the right-leaning French government. She was fiery and placed blame for the country’s infighting on the “neo-liberal government’ for promoting a ‘commodification of culture’ and ‘breaking down the French model cultural exception.”
It has been heavily speculated that such comments turned off more than a few of the selecting board members. Knowing that there was a viable alternative that could be placed upon the Academy’s altar, Anatomy Of A Fall suffered the consequences.
Whether or not this is true is never going to be proven without a doubt, but it’s fun to speculate. No harm in that as long as we don’t present to know all the facts.
Facts play a key role in Anatomy Of The Fall, but what’s fact, what’s embellishment, and what’s fiction, are all left up for debate. It is part of the genius of the movie that nothing and no one can be trusted fully. What can be treated as fact is the watchability factor for Anatomy Of A Fall. Whether or not it holds up in the long term depends on how you interpret the more in-your-face story decisions. Smarter individuals than I say it was purposeful to rub the audience’s nose in it, others saw such acts as shortcuts in an otherwise well thought out movie.
It’s the beauty of movies. It’s all subjective.
Anatomy Of A Fall is streaming on Hulu.
STANKO RATING: B+
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