Anatomy of a Fall (2023)

Written for RAF News November 2023

A fraught and complex marriage is put on trial when a man is found dead in front of his chalet having fallen from the attic. Discovered with a fatal head injury, it may have resulted from a knock during the fall; or maybe just before.

Although we see the moments around his death, we do not yet have the context. This will be drawn out in the courtroom, where the film spends most of its runtime. Sandra (Sandra Hüller) is a successful German novelist living in France with her partially-blind son Daniel (Milo Machado Graner), family dog Snoop, and until now, with her husband Samuel (Samuel Theis) – but the relationship certainly had issues, as the prosecution will make evident. 

Sandra is suspected of killing Samuel for various reasons: the circumstances around the incident itself, their history of violent exchanges, and going as deep as the resentments that they harboured for one another. The courtroom scenes are less stagey than is common in films. By comparison this feels conversational, almost intimate, but nonetheless pointed and combative. Witnesses are brought to the stand and cross-examined, but when evidence is presented, or an anecdote described, we see the moments play out. One particular fight is viewed almost in its entirety, and it feels painfully lived in. 

The performances of the central cast are phenomenal. Samuel is only seen briefly in flashbacks, as someone struggling severely with work-life demands, whether he is suicidal or not will be debated. Daniel is 10 years old and witnesses the entire trial, every revelation fracturing the idea of his family. Sandra is the one in the spotlight, under scrutiny, her resilience almost working against her. The centre of the film, she enriches the text deeply though we cannot be sure if she is telling the truth.

Anatomy of a Fall is a riveting courtroom drama, expertly played.