Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall, winner of the Palme d’Or at the 76th Cannes Film Festival, demystifies a couple of wealthy artists. In the course of a trial, everything is revealed: power relationships, domination, seduction, neuroses, and flaws.
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Anatomy of a Fall’s plot is deeply rooted in juridical case facts. The screenplay was co-written by the director and her partner, actor-director Arthur Harari. The performance of German actress Sandra Hüller, playing the role of a German author, is outstanding. The actress has starred in two of the most prominent films at the Cannes Film Festival, Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest.
In Anatomy of a Fall, a two-and-a-half hour feature film, Justine Triet breaks down a couple’s relationship through the trial of a German author, played by Sandra Hüller. The woman is accused of murdering her husband in their chalet in the French Alps. The couple’s only witnesses are their visually impaired son as well as the husband’s recordings of all of their arguments.
The film’s subject surpasses the representation of a trial. It expresses a couple’s relationship, the relationship between one individual and another, the concept of entity, one’self mirrorred by his other half, individuals’ life as a couple and the questions this experience raises. Facing a partner, would we really still be the same person? Sandra Hüller portrays the complex character of a woman. She is fulfilled, open, free, and equipped with a strong personality. All of those factors make her a suspect and shroud her in mystery.
Was it murder or suicide? Did this self-assured woman murder her husband in the Alps? The breakdown of the couple’s mechanisms, and those of justice, go hand in hand in this film. The lack of communication is at the heart of this cerebral deconstruction; the woman’s mother tongue is German, English is the couple’s tool of communication, while French is used in the courtroom. These languages reflect the woman’s splintered brain: mother, artist, partner… This mosaic takes the viewer into the reconstruction of a “puzzle”, in a courtroom where lawyers clash. A couple’s entire life, with its most minute daily details, is reduced to a confrontation of articles, laws and lawyers’ perceptions.
The director was keen on representing the theme of justice: “The trial is a place where people are delirious about their lives, where speech is distorted. It’s where fiction begins,” she states.
By Marie-Christine Tayah with AFP.
Instagram : @mariechristine.tayah
