Anatomy of a fall: a thriller that plunges into the complexity (and hell) of the couple and scores as much as Parasite

Parasite, Titanium and now Anatomy of a fall : in recent years, the films awarded at Cannes give all their meaning to the festival and its Palme d’Or. Anatomy of a fall it particularly reminded us of the experience of Bong Joon Ho’s film, in its ability to use everything the genre film is more breathtaking, more mysteriousto be revealed in the most unexpected way possible the best hidden balances of power, the gray areas the most inscrutable of society. AS Parasite a few years before him, Anatomy of a fall marks us for a long time.

This Wednesday, August 23, the winner of the latest edition of Cannes finally comes out in theaters. We were all the more eager to discover the best film in the competition as it is signed by the French director and feminist Justine Triet, who, in just 4 films, has built a filmography that deserves your full attention.

Far from the stereotype of the competitive film, too cerebral and unpleasant, Anatomy of a fall East a thriller and a hypnotic test film Who it had us holding our breath from start to finish. For 2h30 we are immersed the gears of the couple, a particularly complex subject worthy of the filmmakers’ interest. Even if we follow a specific couple, within the narrow walls of a courtAnatomy of a fall it resonates far beyond.

Anatomy of a fall, what is it about?

Sandra, Samuel and their blind 11-year-old son Daniel have been living away from it all for a year in the small mountain village where Samuel comes from.

One day Samuel is found dead at the foot of their house. A survey for suspicious death It’s open. Sandra is soon accused despite the doubt: suicide or murder?

A year later, Daniel attended the process of the mother, real dissection of the couple.

The couple and the trial: exciting cinematic territories

In Justine Triet’s film, fall comes in all its forms. Of course, in the literal sense, there’s the fall of Samuel, who falls several stories and dies instantly. Then, we understand by reading the synopsis, the film explores the explosion of the couple. As spectators, we experience the sensation of falling, in the sense ofa dive. Over the course of the film and the process, we sink the gears of the couple. The deeper the exploration, the more we realize that beyond this imaginary family, Justine Triet discovers mechanisms of influence, dominion, powerfeelings of frustration, resentment or jealousy being exercised the couple generally.

Self Anatomy of a fall it is so remarkableit is in particular thanks to the intelligence of your device. Don’t expect a realistic French film, following the daily life of a couple, from love scenes to fight scenes. Here the sequences in which the couple reunite are even very rare; as for her husband, she is practically absent.

Anatomy of a fall it’s a real one test film, and that’s what makes it so explosive. Indeed, there was no better way to highlight the connections between two realities than they coexist, they illuminate each other and, more often than not, they come into conflict : marriage and justice.

With a female character (Sandra) and a space (the court), Justine Triet raises a series of questions: how to remain yourself in a couple? How not to get confused in the other? How not to die of the other? How not to crush it? And what happens when justicewho thinks of the world from a dichotomy between innocence and guiltlook down and give it a try judge a structure if complex, unfathomable and human ?

In addition to wearing an inherent suspense – we are suspended from end to end on the mystery of Samuel’s death: the courthouse is exciting cinematic territory because it is precisely the place where we formulate what society deems suspicious, immoral, criminal. Intimacy and modesty are shattered: Sandra’s personal, romantic, sexual and literary life (she is a writer) is examined under the pressure of the lawyers’ accusing questions and under the gaze of her son present at the trial. . This sudden coexistence between the domination of personal, sentimental, instinctive (the couple, the family) and that of the institution, rules and morals, with at the center love and death make the movie hypnotic, exciting, chilling.

What is most striking is undoubtedly this value judgements, prejudices, sexism and unspoken violence they are far from being confined to the domestic sphere that the court judges but they are above all the norm in the world of justice. Why her it seems too free, too elusive, too callous, too independent (she does not speak French perfectly in front of a court that deals with it perfectly, Sandra is bisexual and has relationships outside the couple), is considered suspicious. Suspected of hating her husband and of being violent, she suffers the sexist violence of the system which claims to judge her.

Anatomy of a fall gives fewer answers who asks no questions. Reveal the problem in broad daylight and shows how much the Court ignores this complexity. TO Huffington PostJustine Triet summed up:

The film asks, I think, a larger question than “Did she kill him? ». There is also the idea of “You can be responsible without being guilty”AND “You can be guilty without being responsible”.

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