The fundamental question that drives Justine Triet’s taut Palme D’or winner “Anatomy of a Fall” is whether blaring 50 Cent’s “P.I.M.P.” at full decibel is justifiable cause for murder. It’s the instrumental version, so more playful than the original and, arguably, a lesser crime. But still, culpability is in the eye of the beholder. For the film’s entire runtime, Triet is an eager puppeteer, delighting in its fractured, escalating drama, much of which plays out off screen and beneath the surface. Before the opening credits, the website “Didshedoit.com” flashes (I just voted), teasing expectations and gamifying the matter of life and death. The lines between truth and lies, reality and fiction (some characters have their actual real names) are redrawn and erased, and the pleasure is in considering the gray area that even nifty lawyers can’t clear up.
It’s those lawyers—clad in ceremonious robes—who ask all the obvious questions, proposing theories both sound and purely speculative to plead their cases. But it’s the marriage story between Sandra (Sandra Hüller), Samuel (Samuel Theis) and their son Daniel (Milo Machado Graner) which drives the tension during the courtroom scenes, not the other way around. Through flashbacks, reenactments and, most thrillingly, stepping into a characters’ (or the creators’) imaginations, Triet (who co-wrote the screenplay with her partner Arthur Harari) unveils a narrative that won’t have a binary outcome, regardless of how a judge rules. Sandra’s the main suspect, but Hüller’s stunning embodiment—which could well earn her the Oscar nomination she deserved for “Toni Erdmann” (2016)—of a grieving widow who’s learning the rules as they go along, auditing all past mistakes and misdeeds, while maintaining some facade of normalcy for her 11-year-old son Daniel.
A Satisfying, Dizzying Conclusion
Poor Daniel. Not only does he have to deal with the death of his father and the stress of attending the trial (as witness and spectator), but he’s also recovering from an earlier accident which left him with limited eyesight, and his father (who was supposed to pick him up that day), guilt-ridden. Also, Daniel (with his trusty dog Snoop) is the one who found Samuel’s lifeless body lying in the snow, head split open, blood still seeping out. Daniel’s a courageous boy, but he’s still a child, so it’s a signal of his desperate quest for answers understandable when he forces Snoop (also wonderful) to ingest “9 or 10” aspirin. Placing Daniel at the center is a neat trick, never an opportunistic manipulation to earn our sympathy. It’s Daniel’s childish curiosity and mature wisdom in court which brings the film to a satisfying, yet dizzying conclusion.
Winning the top prize at Cannes made Triet just the third woman to do so, following Jane Campion in 1993 (“The Piano”) and Julia Ducournau in 2021 (“Titane”). Her title conjures Otto Preminger’s “Anatomy of a Murder” (1959), but refuses to yield to common legal-drama tropes, avoiding a tidy resolution and depicting the real effect the trial must have on a family. In the end, there are no winners; even Snoop has his own brush with mortality. The innocent victims likewise earn our sympathy, although the notion of who’s innocent is fluid, if not totally inscrutable. Triet provides plenty of evidence to imply guilt, but she also allows the defense lawyers to twist words, bend facts in order to suit their goals. It’s a giddy, disturbing read of courtroom politics, when sealing victory means arguing the deceased was merely hopeless and suicidal (a fact Sandra rejects wholesale, in court).
50 Cent’s ‘P.I.M.P.’ as a Harrowing Connotation
Swann Arlaud and Sandra Hüller in “Anatomy of a Fall.” (Photo: Les Films Pelléas).
Triet claimed that she and Harari treat the story “as a playground, as well as a nightmare vision of what will never happen to us.” And the film does play like a fantasy, encouraging viewers to get drunk on possibilities, and sober up to realities. The 50 Cent song might have elicited some laughs initially, but each time it played—in a courtroom, during a deposition—it carried a harrowing connotation, almost a demarcation of before and after “the fall,” with “P.I.M.P.” representing the irrevocable and inconceivable. Triet’s dynamic film shifts shapes, having some fun analyzing how storytelling is what basically dictates who’s guilty and innocent. It’s no crime to enjoy the ride, and Triet’s a generous tour guide through the maze, which lightly mocks the right things yet knows when to put on a straight face. Just like Sandra …?
“Anatomy of a Fall” screened at this year’s New York Film Festival (NYFF). It is currently available to watch in select theaters. It will be available to stream on Hulu after its theatrical release.
