“Anatomy of a Fall” Focus on the invisible The Truth

A man falls to his death, his suspicious wife, and another man

As the court proceedings unfold, it becomes clear that the couple's relationship has had many problems. Some may even say that it has already fallen apart. If this is the case, then it is not just Samuel who has "fell apart," but also their marriage. To borrow the words of a review in the Los Angeles Times, the trial is beginning to resemble "an autopsy of a marriage."(*3)

However, there is only circumstantial evidence to prove that Sandra committed the murder, and the prosecutor (Antoine Lennartz) makes what sometimes seems like a heavy-handed argument to create the impression that she was the culprit. It's amusing to note that the prosecutor doesn't look like someone in the legal profession at all.

Of course, we must pay attention to Sandra's lawyer, Vincent (Swann Arlot), who also appears in the courtroom. Movies in which a husband falls to his death and the wife is suspected of murder are Park Chan-wook's " The Decision to Leave " (22) and Masumura Yasuzo's " A Wife Confesses " (61). In the former, a detective investigating the case, and in the latter, a pharmaceutical company employee who was close to the couple, is manipulated by the wife and falls in love with her. In this film, Vincent could be in that position, but the relationship between Sandra and him is very delicate. There seems to have been something between them when they were much younger, but the film never fully reveals it. Sandra is probably using his feelings in some way, and Vincent is probably aware of it. The depiction of this delicate relationship, which is never the main focus of the story, also adds depth to the flavor of the film.

“Anatomy of a Fall” ©2023 LFP – Les Films Pelléas / Les Films de Pierre / France 2 Cinéma / Auvergne‐Rhône‐Alpes Cinéma

words and The Truth

Let's move on to the contents of the trial. The couple had their own problems. They were about the accident seven years ago that left Daniel blind. They were about Sandra's success in publishing books and her success in fame, while Samuel, an aspiring writer, was unable to even write. They were about Sandra's sexual orientation and her seemingly promiscuous behavior. And they were about a decisive event surrounding the book that Samuel was planning.

But there are many different types of marriages. No matter how it looks from the outside, the two of you may have been doing well. Even if you insult someone during an argument, how can you say that you really mean it? People often say things they don't mean. In the heat of the moment, or as a performance to hide their feelings, or to provoke the other person.

“Anatomy of a Fall” ©2023 LFP – Les Films Pelléas / Les Films de Pierre / France 2 Cinéma / Auvergne‐Rhône‐Alpes Cinéma

There are other factors that make it difficult to see the truth. First, like " The Decision to Leave ," this story contains the possibility of discrepancies due to the movement between different languages. Sandra is from Germany and Samuel is from France. They usually speak to each other in English, so to speak, in the "middle ground." How faithfully can you express your true feelings in a language other than your mother tongue? Moreover, Sandra is even forced to speak in French in court, which she finds less fluent than English.

Another thing, and this is the most troubling, is that while Sandra was a writer who wrote based on her own experiences, she was also a writer who intended for "fiction to destroy reality." People superimposed her work onto the incident, and in the courtroom and in the discourse reporting on the trial, reality was eroded by fiction.

true hero