“Anatomy of a Fall” — Film Review
This piece was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the actors currently on strike, Anatomy of a Fall wouldn’t exist.
Anatomy of a Fall begins on a snowy day in March at a chalet in France. Three people live there: a mother (Sandra Hüller), a father (Samuel Theis), and a son (Milo Machado-Graner). The mother, Sandra, is a writer who is being interviewed at home when her husband, Samuel, begins to play extremely loud music. Nothing can be accomplished with all that noise, so she quickly ends the interview and goes upstairs to speak with Samuel. At the same time, their son, Daniel, decides to take his dog for a walk. When he returns, he finds his father dead on the snow outside.
There’s simplicity in Anatomy of a Fall — in its minimal locations, small group of characters, and familiar premise. A courtroom drama centered around a mysterious death is nothing new, but director and co-writer Justine Triet is so very obviously at the top of her game. She paces the film in a taut manner that forces the audience to live within the unknowingness. To wait anxiously for the next bit of information to come out. Even though it’s a murder she’s on trial for, the real subject of the investigation is Sandra’s relationship with Samuel. Snippets of their life together are taken out of context and blown up on the television screens in court. The audience begins to draw their own conclusions, as though they are the jurors.
The difficulty of Anatomy of a Fall is in its ending. We’re living in an information age where countless facts and figures are at our fingertips. An answer is a mere Google search away. Tragic events like this one, where someone is dead, should have a neat final chapter. Even if it’s not a happy ending for those involved, we yearn for an ending that allows us to comprehend what happened. Even if we don’t completely understand the events and struggle to process the exact circumstances that led us here, a concrete answer gives us a means of parsing through the events in an intellectual way. Things become difficult when nothing concrete is offered. When all of the exhibits and evidence don’t amount to the truth. It creates an off-kilter sensation where the theater is a flurry of “did she do it?” as the credits roll.
Did she do it? It’s the question that distributor Neon asks on didshedoit.com. At the time of this writing, 65% voted no. What does that say about humanity and our ability to synthesize information? We all watched the same two-and-a-half-hour movie, were presented with the same information, and yet we can’t agree. Where does this discrepancy come from? These are just fictional characters. No one could have come into the theatre with preconceived notions about them.
Anatomy of a Fall, while showcasing a stunning use of the film medium, is a social experiment. The film isn’t about a death at all. It’s a mirror held up to the audience, forcing us to interact with the film in a way that isn’t often asked of us. Answers are freely given in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and we expect explanations when we sit down to watch any movie. Anatomy of a Fall didn’t even give its lead actor the answer to the film’s central question, so why would the audience be any different? The film is an opportunity to ask deeper philosophical questions about relationships, family dynamics, the art-and-artist relationship, and the ever-thorny idea of romance. To ask questions and interact with the film as a text meant for analysis. To sit around coffee tables debating the real-life implications of the themes the film pokes at. Yes, it’s easy to boil this all down to whether or not she did it, but that’s merely the entry point for far more interesting conversations.
Anatomy of a Fall could easily work merely as a critique on society’s obsession with true crime. The case in the film bears a resemblance to the death of Kathleen Peterson, whose story was made into a documentary and then fictionalized by HBO, but director Triet was inspired by the Amanda Knox case. There are thousands of unexplained deaths and events that are widely disputed, and everyone thinks they’re the person who can finally crack the case. Anatomy of a Fall, however, has a much more micro focus. It’s the story of a relationship that cracked and splintered long before it ended.
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