It is known that when a person dies in murky circumstances, the spouse is always the first person suspected. But what happens when said circumstances make both the theory of suicide and that of homicide equally credible? This is what filmmaker Justine Triet imagined in her Palme d’Or-winning film, Anatomy of a fall : a legal drama to which she added many brilliant complications, and above all an ambiguity which would be infuriating if it were not so brilliant.
The plot has as its protagonist Sandra, a renowned author who lives in the mountains, not far from Grenoble, in the company of her husband, Samuel, a failed writer (did you say marital tensions?), and their young son, Daniel, who is visually impaired.
One day, Samuel’s remains are found in the snow, very close to the house. Did the deceased escape the window by jumping from the attic? Did he throw himself off the overhanging balcony? The police are investigating, the experts are assessing… but no certainty has been reached. Suspicion towards Sandra continues to grow.
First convinced that the dust, or rather the snow, will settle, she is indicted, then formally accused of the murder of Samuel. In court, we plead in French, which disadvantages Sandra, who is German (Samuel was French, and the couple communicated in English: a source of misunderstandings deliberately planted by Justine Triet, as she told us in an interview).
And it’s only just started.
The shadow of a doubt
What follows is sure to surprise at every turn. Moreover, Daniel’s blindness is one of the most brilliant “complications”, for several reasons. Indeed, Daniel’s memories are based on what he heard. Or thought I heard. Or claims to have heard. Like Sandra, Daniel may lie, invent or embellish in order to exonerate or incriminate his mother.
Because during the investigation and trial, the trust that Daniel has in his mother is shaken, for various reasons that will not be mentioned. This break (temporary or permanent?) of a fundamental bond uniting a child and a parent accounts for a lot in the considerable emotional charge that the film displays.
Note that in the second part, Daniel’s perspective becomes as important as Sandra’s in the story. A story that is simple from the outset, but which continues to become more complex, for two reasons. Firstly, certain facts of the case make it possible to assert one thing and its opposite, depending on who presents them. Secondly, the testimonies – of Sandra, of Daniel, and even of Samuel, deceased though he may be – that the filmmaker reconstructs in the form of flashbacks cannot be considered as necessarily and absolutely true.
Except that, once the director shows us these real or invented memories “as if we were there,” our reflex is to believe in them… before new information comes to make us doubt.
The narrative construction, in its remarkable precision, is a matter of watchmaking mechanics. However, and this is paradoxical, the story nonetheless distills uncertainty as to the veracity of what is stated here or what is revealed there. We return to this diabolical ambiguity already mentioned.
Which ambiguity gives Justine Triet a beautiful kinship with the great Patricia Highsmith, who would certainly have loved this original story in many respects.
A dizzying mastery
In the direction, Justine Triet demonstrates the same consummate art in terms of blurring the lines, once again, by opposing two seemingly antithetical approaches. Thus the present, especially during the trial, gives off a very calm clinical side, quite the opposite of the flashbacks filmed with a nervous camera, like this violent argument revisited in court, and which we witness like the proverbial fly on the fly. the wall.
Carried by a pair of absolutely fabulous interpretations from Sandra Hüller (Tony Erdmann, The Zone of Interest), in the potentially unplayable role of Sandra, and Milo Machado Graner, in the eminently demanding role of Daniel, Anatomy of a shushHe is dizzyingly masterful.
When the outcome comes, we think we are settled, and then no. It would be infuriating if it wasn’t so brilliant, they wrote.