‘Anatomy of a fall’: what is the film that won the Palme d’Or at Cannes 2023 about?

Masterfully executed by the German actress Sandra Hüllerthe film Anatomy of a fall (Anatomy of a shot)winner of the Palme d’Or at the 76th Cannes Film Festivalis framed a courtroom drama directed by the French Justine Trietmeticulously dissected a couple’s crisis that ends in the husband’s suspicious death.

With a term of 2 hours and 30 minutesthe tape was co-written by Triet and his partner, the actor and director Arthur Harry.

“But it’s bigger than a courtroom movie”, he told the AFP the 44-year-old director, who has made four films so far, always centered around female characters. “I have always made films about women. This time it is someone who is not easy to understand.”.

The film “again explores the family and couple: how are we doing What do we allow ourselves? What do we owe ourselves?”.

The main character is depressed and leads the family (his wife and a visually impaired son) to a dead end alley in that remote chalet in the middle of the mountains. While Hüller’s character (a writer) “takes on her freedom, her sexuality, her life choices. It is strong and that arouses suspicion”, explained the director.

Did the man commit suicide or did she kill him? There are no witnesses, so the trial is conducted by the widow as well as her lawyer and the prosecutor. Until a statement by the son, played with great conviction by a young actor (Milo Machado), brings the denouement..

As he said, Triet built the band like a puzzle in which the spectator is projected from the first scene, the meaning of which he understands only late. “This movie is like stepping into this woman’s brain and trying to understand who she is as a woman, as a mother, as an artist.he added.

The scenes of the trial take center stage, led by the confrontation between the Attorney General (Antoine Reinartz) and the defendant’s attorney (Swann Arlaud).

The director, the third woman to win the top prize at Cannes, further noted that she was very interested in film justice: “The process is a place where we are excited about people’s lives, where the discourse is distorted. It is the place where fiction begins”. The premiere is scheduled for August in France.

The filmmaker who listens to women

In just four films and as many portraits of women, director Justine Triet has made a name for herself in the cinema of her country. Born on July 17, 1978 in Fécamp, Justine Triet grew up in Paris. “My mother had a rather complicated life, she worked and raised three children, two of whom were not hers. My father was very absent”, he recalled for the AFP.

In 2007 he made his first documentary, southern place, about student demonstrations in France. But it was The Battle of Solferino which caused a furore in Cannes in 2013, when it was programmed in a parallel selection of the festival.

A year later, this film, shot in the middle of the crowd on the day of the second round of the French presidential election, was It was nominated for the 2014 César French Film Awards in the Best Film category..

Addicted to television series, the director sees her reputation established with the film Victoria’s cases (2016), which drew nearly 700,000 viewers in France. It premiered in 2019 Sibyl’s reflection.

Although he claims to be “instinctive”, his cinema, which leaves nothing to chance, is very reflective“many question the relationships between men and women, which are central to our lives.”

Cinema should contribute “to the feminist social revolution,” he says. “For a long time, when I watched movies, I thought I was the boy, I identified with the male role,” in the absence of strong female roles.

“We need stories made by women, directed by women, judged by women. We are still a long way from equality.”.