Review: Anatomy of a Fall

Director:  Justine Triet

Stars: Sandra Hüller, Swann Arlaud, Milo Machado-Graner

The old philosophical conundrum “If a tree falls in the forest and there’s nobody there to hear it, does it make a sound?” is collapsed and rebuilt for courtroom drama in Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winning Anatomy of a Fall, which applies this quandary on notions of observation and perception to the classic “did he fall or was he pushed?” scenario.

First the incident in question presented, naturally, with the most pertinent information excised. High in the alps, French writer/teacher Samuel Maleski (Samuel Theis) lives with his more successful German wife, author Sandra Voyter (Sandra Hüller), and their visually impaired son Daniel (Mile Machado Graner). There’s evidently some dissonance in the home. Samuel uses a loud steel drum cover of 50 Cent to sabotage an interview Sandra is giving while he works on renovations in the third floor roof space. The appointment thwarted, the journalist (Camille Rutherford) leaves. Disturbed by the noise, Daniel takes the family dog for a walk. By the time of his return Samuel is lying dead in the snow, having seemingly fallen to his death. Sandra appears oblivious, stirred only by her son’s cries.

When the coroner rules cause of death as inconclusive the machinations begin against Sandra; the only other person in the house at the time, and whose alibi is that she was asleep despite the noise still blaring. Calling on the assistance of longtime friend and lawyer Vincent Renzi (Swann Arlaud), Sandra is inevitably indicted on suspicion of murder, but the paucity of conclusive evidence leaves both defence and prosecution struggling to build sturdy cases. The viewer is invited to make their decision and then prodded by Triet and co-writer Arthur Harari to reconsider back and forth.

That indecision is presumably the intention, and it is rested on to keep this thing cooking for 2 and a half hours. For this viewer, however, the question became less whether Sandra did it or not (I was more or less unswayed from my initial position), and more why care? A pot boiler that’s been left to simmer, Anatomy of a Fall impresses through a clutch of compelling performances and some keen visual choices that dot the running time (there are echoes of Lars Von Trier here), but it is mostly a pedestrian retread of so many paperback thrillers and a frequently undisciplined one at that.

It scores big when it chisels into human emotion and stands up against our keenness to reduce complex relationships down to digestible soundbites. Frustrated at having to defend herself in an uncommon language, Sandra frequently rebuffs efforts from the prosecution or witnesses to narrow the scope of her marriage and history with Samuel to the width of a single argument or tragedy. Her defence – whether strategised with Renzi or not – is a steadfast rejection of a kind of true crime pop psychology shorthand that we’ve all grown familiar with.

Without clear facts her case comes down to convincing the jury (and us) of what they should choose to believe. Both Renzi and his opponent (Antoine Reinartz) wander into some pretty murky legal waters during their arguments. Try as it might to appear loftier than its peers, Anatomy of a Fall is prone to indulging some pretty spurious theatrics in its courtroom. Futurama satirised this trope best. “I’m going to allow this” has become a meme, and its the territory Triet’s case often finds itself in.

A pair of performances distinguish themselves and lend the film a lot of its credibility. First Hüller, who is probably best known internationally for her turn in Maren Ade’s celebrated art house comedy Toni Erdmann from 2016 (the film that many felt deserved that year’s Palme). As Sandra she’s close-quartered, diffident but vulnerable. Just ambiguous enough. As impressive – thankfully – is young Machado-Graner as Daniel. It’s a narrative irony that Daniel’s faltering testimony is material in leading his mother to trial, and that it is his equally subjective return to the stand at the eleventh hour that has the power to decide her fate. Machado-Graner displays sensitivity and makes Daniel deeply sympathetic to us.

And yet there are stilted moments that threaten to undo it all, as well. The defence are thrown a curve ball by a USB recording made by Samuel the day prior to his death. When this is ultimately played for the court, Triet does the sensible thing and uses it to segue into the film’s only substantive flashback. The scene – an argument – is awkwardly overwritten, however, and never fully convinces as two people talking to one another. The performances are big and showy, but the back and forth is riddled with contrivance to shoehorn in all of the movie’s pertinent themes. It feels like an exchange designed to fuel intellectual deconstruction, not the clashing of two heated individuals. Suggestions of a flirtation between Sandra and Renzi also feel half-hearted and a little rote.

The yearning to be perceived as highbrow makes Anatomy of a Fall feel shakily ‘better’ than the genre its playing in, and so like an exercise. Many great filmmakers play with tropes, but setting yourself above your peers and fore-bearers is asking for a fall of a different kind. It doesn’t help Triet’s case that a far more original and compelling variant on the courtroom drama has already appeared in the past year; Alice Diop’s quietly intense and experimental Saint Omer. They’re quite different creatures, ultimately, but if we’re comparing then Diop’s less conventional approach wins out on all fronts. When Saint Omer ended I wanted more. In contrast, Triet doesn’t seem sure when to stop.