ANATOMIE D’UNE CHUTE (2023)
dir. Justine Triet
A courtroom drama, a psychological thriller, a family tragedy—all at once, yet none of these things fully define it. Anatomy of a Fall is a film about perception, power, and the stories we tell to make sense of chaos. Two and a half hours long, yet every second is taut, sharp, and relentless.
Sandra Voyter (Sandra Hüller) is a successful novelist. Her husband, Samuel, is an academic who never quite made it. Their son, Daniel, is partially blind, caught between them, shaped by their resentments. Then, one afternoon, Samuel is found in the snow, blood pooling around his head. Suicide, accident, murder—every option is on the table, but only one makes for a clean case. Sandra is arrested. The son, the only witness, didn’t see a thing. Or maybe he did. Or maybe what he remembers is what he needs to believe.
Hüller’s performance is a study in controlled chaos. She never begs for sympathy. She doesn’t need to. The men around her crumble, sweat, weep—she stays poised, her silence more powerful than any grand plea. She lies when necessary, omits when convenient. Not to manipulate, but to survive. The court isn’t here for the truth; it’s here for a story that fits. And if it doesn’t fit, they’ll make it fit.
Triet doesn’t give easy twists or dramatic reveals. Instead, the film peels back layers of reality, exposing the machinery beneath. The courtroom becomes a stage, every testimony a script, every expert a director shaping the final cut. A dummy is hurled from a window to recreate the fall, proving nothing except how absurd the search for certainty can be.
And then there’s the soundtrack. Not just a score, but a weapon. Samuel, hours before his death, blasts 50 Cent’s P.I.M.P., filling the house with aggressive, grating sound. A doctoral student interviewing Sandra can’t hear herself think. Daniel and his dog flee outside. Sandra pours herself another glass of wine, her face impassive. She never asks him to turn it down. The film plays with this moment, twisting it from annoyance to omen to evidence. A small irritation becomes something monstrous in hindsight.
The trial ends, but the film doesn’t ease up. Sandra walks free, but the real judgment is happening at home. Daniel, the blind son, must decide what he believes. The camera moves like his eyes—hesitant, searching, uncertain. There is no clarity, no resolution, only the weight of the story he chooses to accept.
A film about reality, where reality is just a set of rules, a game played by those too lazy to imagine something different. Step out of your assigned role, and you become an outcast. Sandra never fit. She lived on the edge of the world, her husband was a black hole, and the people around her were nothing but blurry figures in the distance. The system, embodied by a hollow-eyed psychiatrist, leans down to her son and purrs, "We’ll be seeing a lot of each other now". A threat disguised as care. The players don’t care about people. They care about masks, scripts, predictable outcomes. They don’t see life; they see roles. And they will shove every person into one, whether it fits or not.
A courtroom drama, a family portrait, and a philosophical puzzle all stitched into one. It grips, it disturbs, it leaves no clean answers. Cold, brilliant, and quietly merciless.
Stories don’t need to be true to be convincing. People believe what fits their expectations, what makes sense in the structure they’ve already built in their heads. Sandra’s trial isn’t just about what happened—it’s about how the jury feels about her, what version of her they find easiest to accept.
Careers work the same way. The strongest argument doesn’t always win. The most qualified person isn’t always chosen. Perception matters. The way a story is framed determines its outcome.
Sandra’s composure unnerves the court. Her ability to stay calm, to refuse theatrics, is read not as strength but as something unnatural, something suspicious. Control is power, but only when people recognize it as such. Hold yourself too tightly, and they’ll write their own version of you.
And then there’s Daniel, the blind son, searching for certainty in a world that offers none. The final judgment isn’t made in the courtroom—it’s made in his mind, where the truth is whatever he needs it to be. Decisions are rarely about facts. They are about the stories people tell themselves.