Cannes award-winning film “Anatomy of a Fall” turns family relationships upside down

French Justine Trieu’s palace drama “Anatomy of a Fall” recently won five European Film Awards in the categories “Best Film”, “Best Director”, “Best Actress”, “Best Screenwriter” and “Best Screenplay”. He confirmed his high status by receiving the Academy Award. Arrangement”. The main character of the film is successful writer Sandra (Sandra Hüller). Her husband, Samuel (Samuel Theis), a teacher and failed writer, falls from the window of the family home in the Alps. For two and a half hours, investigators, a prosecutor, and a lawyer dissected their married life to reveal: What had happened was a tragic accident, a suicide—or perhaps the author had killed her husband, calm as a boa constrictor? Focus It draws attention to some trends in film in recent years.

“Anatomy of a Fall” is Justine Trieu’s fourth feature film in which the action revolves around a woman. And the real conflict here is the battle of the sexes. He says this at the beginning of the tape. A student comes to Sandra to be interviewed for her thesis on the author’s work.

Samuel, who is on the top floor, plays music so loud it becomes impossible to talk. Sandra and Samuel’s 11-year-old visually impaired son goes for a walk with his guide dog and returns about an hour later to find his father lying in the snow, covered in blood. The child is calling his mother. He calls the doctors who declare death. Sandra is surprised but not too upset, but the child is inconsolable.

Family under the microscope

An investigation is underway: forensic experts take samples, take photographs and notice suspicious arrangement of objects or blood stains: they are not particularly happy with blood spatters. However, unlike the famous American detective series, where detective geniuses quickly assemble puzzles, in a French court movie no one can fully understand anything (remember the actions of the police in the comedy series Taxi), putting forward dozens of hypotheses.

The entire judicial machinery is descending on the author to find out: Did he have a motive for the murder? They analyze and examine dozens of facts and speculations. Since the film assumes the active participation of the audience in the thought process, let’s look at some of them as examples.

Sandra is German by nationality. She met the Frenchman Samuel in London – he was a teacher and it was there that she fascinated him. “I didn’t understand anyone, neither my family nor my friends, but he came in and became my guide – everything became clear to me,” the writer explained.

Samuel had drafts of a novel and wanted to write a book. To this end, he suggested to his wife, Sandra, that they move to a village in the French Alps and buy a cheaper, unrenovated chalet. And so they did.

A German and a Frenchman met in London and now live in the Alps: Trieu emphasizes European globalism. Sandra speaks English at home but has also somehow mastered French.

Something didn’t work out for Sam in the book, but Sandra wrote a novel based on one of his ideas, then the next – and so on…

Change of roles

The film shows a barrage of expert analyses, including psychological analysis, that do not help uncover the truth. In court, none of the experts could give a clear picture of what happened; there is only a competition between different intellectual models: which is more believable, which is less, and the lawyer and the prosecutor compete in humorously manipulating the versions and turning them into something else. in a way that is beneficial to them.

Sandra is a lady of average appearance, character and mind. He always achieves his goals, shows almost no emotions, is extremely rational. All of these characteristics are more likely to be specific to men. Meanwhile, Sandra responded to her husband’s accusations that he “stole” the idea for the novel: “I’d rather be proud that you inspired me.” So Sam inspired his wife like a muse.

Samuel is handsome, spends a lot of time at home with the child, and appears to be jealous of his wife’s writing success. Angry, hysterical, sensitive. And these features are more likely to be characteristic of women (she is also a muse).

A baby-related family tragedy occurred when Samuel, trying to find time for himself to write a book, hired a nanny. While helping four-year-old Dan cross the road, he was hit by a motorcyclist, damaging his eyesight. And here Sam takes it out on his wife like a man: “she is to blame for everything” because she hired such a nanny. So she offered to tutor Daniel at home (Sam is a teacher, after all), and her free time became even less. Like any of his books, its renovation has not been completed yet…

Important

And Sandra even managed to “get it wrong” with women, but this is not her fault, because, in her words, “it was necessary for personal hygiene in a difficult period.”

Justine Trieu admitted in an interview with Forbes that she created the image of the main character in a way that did not necessarily evoke sympathy. “Audiences have become more tolerant of unpleasant heroes. But for a long time this was the prerogative of men. This was brought up in culture: for example, in the series “The Sopranos” or “Mad Men” the heroes are monstrous and at the same time extremely friendly. But they are men. Of course which “It is easy to say that it is easy to put a woman in their place. But working on films like Anatomy of a Fall means taking small steps toward empowering women to succeed.” Audiences are used to seeing complex female characters on the big screen.”

That is, Justine Trieu to some extent transferred to her hero the characteristics inherent in men in cinema. So what makes us watch these unattractive villains in movies? And this is their success, their desire to win, their leadership. And Sandra has leadership skills in spades. In the film, Samuel shouts: “You suppressed my will. We only do what you want.” He logically objects: “But was it you who brought us to the Alps and settled us here?” There is nothing to cover up. Apparently, at the initial stage of the relationship, he became fascinated, suggested a plan, made the move and… Everything stopped. And then a change occurred: Sandra made a brilliant literary career and became more and more domineering and authoritarian. Samuel, on the contrary, increasingly takes on the burden of household responsibilities that he cannot cope with. And for “personal hygiene” Sandra was already choosing partners for herself: even in the sexual sphere she showed herself more and more as a man and without any reflection on this issue.

Dog is man’s friend

Willy-nilly, we pay attention to the gender area because, as the quote above suggests, the director himself pays attention to it. But at the same time, Justine Trieu distances herself from her characters as much as possible, so as not to give them their own assessment. The only thing is that there is a feeling that even Trieu cannot help but admire the strong-willed triumphant march with which Sandra overcomes countless obstacles. Whether we like it or not, the result is a hymn to feminism. At Cannes, this trend didn’t take shape immediately, but in 2021 the Palme d’Or was awarded to Julia Ducournau’s film Titan, about a supergirl who kills men and makes love with cars. And two-time Cannes winner Swede Ruben Östlund (Palme d’Or – 2017 and 2022) loves to portray weak-willed “civilized” men. This year, it was she who gave the main prize to the president of the jury, Justine Trieu.

An unscientific idea is that children are affected by their parents’ relationships. And in the finale of “Anatomy of a Fall” you will find a unique research experiment carried out by an 11-year-old boy with a strong will, observation and ability to make, who seems to have inherited a sensitive soul from his father. paradoxical but logical conclusions from his mother. And he will do this with the help of a dog.

“Anatomy of a Fall” is about the fact that in modern society, everything in the world is mixed together, there is no single reference point, no single absolute, no one believes in anything, and the winner is neither truth nor morality. but another perspective. And you can only trust one dog. From where? It has no egoism towards its owner.