Anatomy of a Fall (2023) is a French courtroom drama directed by Justin Triet that follows the mysterious death of Samuel Maleski (Samuel Thesis). He lives in the snowy regions of The Alps with his wife, Sandra Voyter (Sandra Hüller), and son Daniel (Milo Machado Graner). The film moves through multiple perspectives of the court and people to find the culprit as the case travels from investigation to tribunal to verdict. Several revelations, evidence, and recordings come to light that keep the viewers guessing as to who the actual perpetrator of this crime is, if at all it is one.
The first (and obvious) suspect is Samuel’s wife, Sandra. The film begins with Sandra in an interview with a female student while her husband blasts music from overhead. She is mildly disturbed by this act yet takes a nap. After a while, their visually impaired son Daniel returns from a walk (with his guide dog Snoop) and discovers Samuel’s body.
Due to the remote location of their chalet and their son’s blindness, there are no witnesses to the crime. The court examines statements from multiple people. With her lawyer Vincent (Swann Arlaud) in tow, Sandra tries to prove that she’s innocent and that there is no foul play. In the end, the court acquits her.
But for viewers like you, the question remains: was Sandra really innocent? Did she kill her husband? Was Samuel’s falling a suicide? We explore these questions in this piece.
Sandra and Samuel’s Marriage Comes Under a Microscope
Sandra and Samul are both writers. But they have their differences. She is successful, confident, bisexual, and a drinker. On the other hand, Samuel is struggling and waiting for his break. This leaves ample ground for ideological discontent between them.
This is heightened by the history of another event. In one of the courtroom exchanges, Sandra reveals her resentment towards Samuel and holds him partly responsible for the accident that led to Daniel’s loss of vision.
A record comes up during the investigation. In the heated exchange between Samuel and Sandra, the former accuses the latter of plagiarism, infidelity, and domination. Things turn violent in the recording. During the court interrogation, Sandra admits to slapping Samuel but identifies the other noises to be Samuel self-harming himself. She also admits to having an affair a year before Samuel’s death. The prosecution tries to correlate Samuel’s loud music to his jealousy of Sandra flirting with a student.
Talking about the Palme d’Or and the Palm Dog Award-winning film, Triet shares her vision: “What was really at the heart of the film—and the main draw for me—was to talk about a couple: to show two people who live together and share their lives with a child, and the structure of the nuclear family. The trial and prosecution of the female character is a pretext for me to explore what is at stake between a couple through the genre of the courtroom film.”
Anatomy Of a Fall Raises Questions on Subjectivity and Objectivity
As the film progresses, the audience (along with the court) tries to piece together the puzzle from the missing pieces. Common prejudices come up. An ambitious wife who is confident of her sexuality, such as Sandra, is frowned upon and suspected. It’s telling that in some scenes, the procedure becomes trying to grasp at any straws to make Sandra look culpable. The power balance is heavily skewed, with Sandra trying her best to defend herself.
“When they can’t find enough evidence against her, they look at her lifestyle. They end up dissecting her as someone who’s not afraid to act, let’s say, egotistically, as they see it,” reflects Triet.
It’s interesting to note how a crime brings our most innocuous lies and acts under the radar. The same happens for Sandra. The things said and unsaid, the acts suppressed and executed, the burden of thoughts and the intention of actions are all examined, re-examined, and analyzed in the court. It’s an exchange between the subjectivity of emotions and the objectivity of the law.
Triet reflects on Sandra’s predicament: “…the first narrative voice that we have is the voice of others or the tribunal so that Sandra’s character herself is only ever expressing herself in a redacted or corrective way. And so it was to enter her mind, but in this way through the decision of the trial and the exterior eye. In a certain way everyone speaks. She’s dispossessed of her narrative. And she said, ‘OK, it’s my story.’ But she always has to rectify.”
Daniel Acts as an Important Judge in Anatomy Of A Fall
Daniel, the son of Sandra and Samuel, acts as an important witness in the movie. The symbolisms here are aplenty. Daniel’s lack of vision acts as a metaphor for the absence of complexity that courtrooms fail to see. It also represents the lack of concrete evidence and tries to reinforce our faith in the power of our instincts.
He shares two crucial pieces of information that change the direction of the tribunal in favor of Sandra. Before the closing arguments in court, Daniel decides to testify. He is assigned a court monitor to prevent anyone from influencing his testimony. He asks Sandra to leave him alone with Marge, the court monitor, and Snoop. He recalls the time when Samuel took an overdose of pills; Snoop too fell sick, probably from eating Samuel’s vomit containing pills. Daniel fed Snoop aspirin to observe if it created the same effect. It did. This helps him conclude that Samuel tried to commit suicide, which coincides with Sandra’s version.
Another vital memory Daniel shares is when Samuel and he were on the way to the veterinarian. Samuel explained how it was essential to be prepared to let go of the people who were close to him once they died. He continued that life goes on despite the passing away of people we love. At that point in time, Daniel had imagined that Samuel was talking about Snoop and him. But in context, it seems like a subtle indication that Samuel gave of his own suicidal thoughts.
Daniel’s testimony helps Sandra get exonerated. The case comes to a close.
Guilty or Not, Sandra Is a Strong Character
Triet’s films often have a strong female character and delves into the psychological complexity of human beings. In Anatomy of a Fall too, the same happens. Despite several attempts, Sandra is an indomitable spirit who doesn’t show signs of weakness even in a court. Even when her views are unpleasant, she doesn’t hesitate to express them. In this way, she doesn’t become the assumed dominating woman who manipulates her husband, kills him, and leads a life of her choice, as the tribunal and people would like to believe.
Triet hasn’t set out to make a whodunit. That’s why when Hüller asked her two days before the shoot whether the character Sandra really did it or not, Triet replied she didn’t know and asked her to play as innocent.
“You don’t know, you don’t know. Because you are in the same place as Daniel [the couple’s blind son, Milo Machado-Graner] and the jury. You don’t know,” Triet shares in an interview with IndieWire.
Much of it is not black and white but grey. Objectively, you can only convict a person when they have committed a crime. Here, Sandra hasn’t. But apart from crime, there’s also indirect responsibility.
As Triet explains: “I think the most interesting thing that I have been told about this film is that she can be responsible without being guilty, or she could be guilty without being responsible. She could be responsible for having driven him to suicide without being guilty of having killed him, or she could have killed him without having wanted to — whether in an impulsive way or in however we can try to imagine that. So truth exists, but it’s too complex to be grasped here.”
Sandra may not be guilty of the crime of killing Samuel. The court has already acquitted her of that. But she is unflinchingly her own self and holding on to her identity. If that seems to be a crime, she is guilty as charged!
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