Genre：Crime/Drama/Thriller
Director：Justine Triet
Cast：Sandra Hüller、Swann Arlaud、Milo Machado-Graner、Antoine Reinartz、Samuel Theis
Viola's Rating：8.7
As the Academy Awards is approaching, many nominations have been meeting the audience on the big screen in recent months. The Cannes-winning French legal drama feature film
Anatomy of a Fall was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay and Best Editing at the Oscars. As it arrived in US theaters in limited release on Oct 13, 2023, moviegoers experienced a trial that tries to dissect a fall.
Winning the Palme d’Or, this dramatic crime thriller tells the story of a woman who is suspected of murder after her husband's death, and their partially sighted son faces a moral dilemma as the main witness.
Not only did the cast perform with amazing acting skills, but also the dog, Messi. Throughout Anatomy of a Fall, the protagonist, Sandra Voyter (Sandra Huller), expresses her devastation and helplessness through her body language, eyes and words. Young actor Milo Machado-Graner, who played Daniel, the son, also demonstrated his brilliant acting to show the character’s confusion and fear. Not to mention the dog actor actually acted out the feeling that it knows exactly what’s happening and won the Palm Dog Award.
Anatomy of a Fall seems like a film that will solve a mystery, but it tells us the difference between facts and truth. We may never know what the truth is no matter how many facts we have. At some point, the truth may not be important anymore, but the judge and the jury, or the audience, still need to decide what they want to believe based on the facts in front of them. In the end, the courtroom gives the moviegoer an answer, but whether it’s the truth or not, we will never know for sure. Ending the flick with an open ending is the most excellent decision the director made in making this motion picture, leaving the audience a bunch of space to ponder about.
Hidden beneath the surface, the theme of
Anatomy of a Fall is marriage. No marriage is perfect, but when it comes to a trial, all the good and bad have to be disclosed, even those secrets a couple hides so carefully to prevent the child from being hurt will have to be exposed. All couples fight, but how big a fight would lead to a murder and whether fights determine a wife’s motivation to kill her husband or not are serious, tricky moral questions.
It's difficult to prove yourself innocent of something you didn’t do, so Anatomy of a Fall focuses on how Sandra and her lawyers try their best to defend her. Since it’s a case related to whether a person is murdered, there’s a jury involved. At this point, whether the defendant can persuade the jury is the key, but even if she does, are you, the moviegoer convinced? No matter what your answer is, there’s no doubt that Anatomy of a Fall is one of the best movies this year.
Picture Credit: IMDb
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