Anatomy of a Fall
“Using an understated but powerful approach, Anatomy of a Fall opens up multiple discussion points regarding gender, sexuality, and disability.”
Title: Anatomy of a Fall (2023)
Director: Justine Triet 👩🏼🇫🇷
Writers: Justine Triet 👩🏼🇫🇷 and Arthur Harari 👨🏼🇫🇷
Reviewed by Ishmeet Nagpal 👩🏽🇮🇳🌈♿
Technical: 5/5
Winner of the Palme d’Or and the Palm Dog Award at the 76th Cannes Film Festival, Anatomy of a Fall deserves its critical acclaim. Director Justine Triet takes her audience on a mind-bending deep dive into a marriage troubled by professional competition and jealousy, issues that come to a head when the husband is found dead under suspicious circumstances. A brilliant Sandra Hüller plays German writer Sandra Voyter who stands accused of the murder of her French husband, Samuel Maleski (Samuel Theis), but her defense lawyers allege that he died by suicide. Their 11-year-old son, Daniel, is a key witness, but he struggles to piece his memories together. A courtroom drama follows, secrets are revealed, and relationships are changed forever.
As the prosecution proceeds to dissect Sandra’s sexuality, professional accomplishments, and her competence as a mother, Triet subtly forces the audience to contend with their own perceptions of what makes a woman “good” or “bad,” a victim or a murderer. Meanwhile, the camera often looks up at Hüller—she is never diminutive, rarely fragile. The viewer has to shift their perspective with each new revelation, having to depend on the testimonies and memories of the characters, only presented with a partial flashback once. Through this understated but powerful approach, Anatomy of a Fall opens up multiple discussion points regarding gender, sexuality, and disability, making it a heady, thought-provoking experience.
Gender: 5/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? YES
In a pivotal flashback, we witness an argument between a husband and wife—an argument that may feel familiar, only here the genders are flipped. Samuel accuses Sandra of not taking on enough housework, expressing that he finds no time to pursue his passions because he is disproportionately taking on caregiving duties for their homeschooled and disabled son. In most households across the world, it is a wife and mother’s labor that is taken for granted. It’s taken for granted that a woman would move to a different country at her husband’s whim, the way Sandra has, despite her misgivings. And of course it’s implicitly expected that she should add childcare and domestic labor on top of her workload as a successful writer. But what happens when it’s the husband, the father, who’s in that position? How big will his resentment grow, and what wounds must his ego receive? Anatomy of a Fall exposes these double standards in mere minutes. During the couple’s most explosive argument, recorded on audio for an enthralled jury to voyeuristically tune into, Samuel accuses Sandra of imposing English-speaking on him, but she reminds him that as his mother tongue is French, hers is German, so they are in fact meeting at a common ground. And yet, Samuel finds it a sacrifice only he’s burdened with.
The prosecutor (Antoine Reinartz) argues for Samuel’s point of view, insinuating that Sandra’s bisexuality, polyamory, and professional success are devious character flaws that make her capable of murder. The courtroom scenes and accompanying media coverage, which seems almost giddy at vilifying a woman standing trial, lay bare the prejudices aimed at ambitious, queer, and sexual women—women who do not chain themselves to the home and hearth, that is. Would the prosecutor and media have reacted the same if the genders were reversed? Anatomy of a Fall exposes this discrimination and hypocrisy, all the while goading the audience to look deeper within themselves.
Race: 1.25/5
Although the film largely takes place in a remote mountainside villa, where it doesn’t feel jarring to see a small cast that is all white, Anatomy of a Fall does take place in modern day France and yet people of color are visibly absent. In a short scene, French Black actor Kareen Guiock Thuram plays a TV presenter. Minor glimpses include an East Asian waitress who serves a dish and disappears, plus a handful of Black courtroom extras who have no dialogue.
Bonus for Disability: +0.50
Non-disabled actor Milo Machado-Graner plays Daniel, a visually impaired child with heightened senses of touch and hearing (but not to the point where his disability turns into an unrealistic “superpower”). He’s portrayed as very independent, playing the piano, bathing his dog, and taking him on long walks in treacherous snow-covered terrain. He’s also a deeply complex and sensitive child. As his primary caregiver, his father projects his own guilt and pain onto him, but Daniel navigates his life and disability on his own terms. It’s neither a prop, nor the focus of the film. Rather, Anatomy of a Fall makes us empathize with the child’s emotional turmoil, making this a nuanced and positive portrayal of people with visual impairments, if one that still pushes the plot along from a non-disabled perspective as Daniel’s parents argue about Daniel’s care.
Bonus for LGBTQ: +0.50
Sandra is bisexual and admits to having sexual relationships with women during her marriage, reminding everyone that she’d always been honest and upfront about it with Samuel. She is unapologetic and matter-of-fact despite biased provocations from the prosecutor, to the point where Sandra’s lawyer calls out the way the prosecutor is trying to stoke sexism and biphobia in the jury. Luckily, Triet makes it clear that Sandra doesn’t fall into any of the offensive stereotypes being suggested by the prosecution.
Mediaversity Grade: B 4.08/5
“Did she do it?” is a question with no clear answer, but that’s hardly the point of this movie. It asks deeper, more unsettling questions: “What is the truth of marriage, of division of labor, of gender dynamics, of sexuality, of jealousy?”
It’s no secret that the world believes men more than women, so it is quite genius that Anatomy of a Fall asks the viewer to pick a side based on subjective testimony. Some will find empathy for Samuel, the man bogged down by his domestic chores and financial misfortunes, jealously watching his wife succeed where he has repeatedly failed. Others will be convinced that Sandra is incapable of murder despite the prosecutor’s efforts to paint her as a sexual deviant and violent spouse. And in all this analysis and debate, one might unlearn, or at least notice, a few patriarchal notions they’re holding onto themselves. In this regard, Anatomy of a Fall is not just a murder mystery; it’s an exercise in examining internalized sexism.
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