This layered Cannes Palme d’Or-winning work, part courtroom drama, part marital exposé about the mysterious circumstances surrounding a death is Justine Triet’s most complex picture to date.

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Justine Triet has so far been a hit-or-miss director.  I was impressed with her first feature, Age of Panic (2013), but Sibyl (2019) left me rather cold. 

Anatomy of a Fall, which won the Cannes Palme d’Or, sees her mounting her most complex film to date.  It’s a terrific watch, though slightly long, but it builds up a kind of narrative momentum that naturally propels the viewer headfirst into the ambiguities of truth. 

Many films have done this before, and Anatomy of a Fall isn’t unique as a ‘murder mystery’, but the death in question here resides in the domain of family. 

A father is found dead, seemingly having fallen from a height.  The mother becomes the prime suspect, while their kid who is blind, becomes a key witness. 

“You need to start seeing how others are going to perceive you.”

Operating like an investigative procedural, though there are no detectives in this one, Anatomy of a Fall uses the courtroom drama as a foil for a stinging marital exposé. 

It recalls the more austere Saint Omer (2022) by Alice Diop, also about a woman on trial, but Triet’s work is as much about legality as it is about perception.  If objective truth is murky, public perceptivity may become the dominant and controlling narrative. 

Sandra Huller (who broke out internationally as an arthouse star with 2016’s Toni Erdmann) is fantastic as the devastated wife of the deceased, whose character is asked to communicate in French instead of English (she’s German and plays one), bringing to light how power may be negotiated via the choice of language.  Sometimes it’s not what we see but what we hear that manipulates our judgment. 

Grade: A-

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