Cannes favorite 'Anatomy of a Fall' brings crucial look at trauma to Ragtag Cinema

There's a moment in the third act of Justine Triet's "Anatomy of a Fall" where the defendant in a criminal case is watching commentary about the court proceedings on television.

The talking heads are glib and cynically savvy, talking about how the trial would be more interesting if the facts were different. Now that would be exciting, they exhort. Or that it was just so crazy that a writer was accused in a murder "like it was one of her books."  

The defendant, who stands accused of killing her husband, can only look at the screen with blank coolness. As if to continue watching suggests she is powerless to prevent becoming a bystander in the tragedy of her life.  

"Fall," the winner of this year's Palme d'Or (best picture) at the Cannes Film Festival, is about how characters engage with trauma. They are either consumed with it or find themselves so far removed from what's happening that they defy natural order.

The subject matter reveals a larger truth about how we — as a society and an audience — process terrible things when they happen to someone else. It is entertainment; something that elicits rumor and speculation as we ignore the implications to real people. Grist for people who aren't ghoulish, but seek to distract themselves from everyday banality. 

Sandra (Sandra Hüller) is a successful German writer living in the French mountainside. The film introduces her talking to another woman — an interviewer, we deduce — as reggae blares from upstairs. There's no context to this. Not yet, anyway.

There's a tension in the frame. Not between the characters but with something off-camera. The interview ends. Much of "Fall" works like this: the audience is presented with a scene and details are doled out later. Patience is essential in appreciating the film.  

Moments later, a body is laying in the crisp snow outside the house. The person who discovers the body is the newly-deceased's young son, Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner).  

The dead man is also Sandra's husband. Vincent (Swann Arlaud) was working in the home's attic and was blasting the music deliberately. Did he jump? Did he fall? Was he pushed? The latter is where authorities land and Sandra is charged with murder. The rest of the film's running time depicts the events leading up to the death, the investigation, and the trial.  

The rest of the film looks like a traditional criminal procedural. Lawyers make their arguments and examine witnesses. I can never tell — in a film based in another's country's legal system — whether that's how those trials work or the film is taking dramatic license. But Sandra is compelled to speak in her own defense. Lawyers question multiple parties at once. Legal arguments are made during those questionings.

Nothing works that way in the courts here, maybe anywhere, but suspension of disbelief is required as there's hardly any legal film that gets those details right. (I am not kidding when I say "My Cousin Vinny" probably comes the closest to anything I've ever seen to realism.) 

Surprises and revelations are made during the course of "Fall." As the story goes on, it is revealed that the marital relationship was fraught with jealousy and other forms of unhappiness. It doesn't do much to reveal those details nor the outcome of the case. All of it seems beside the point. Triet seeks to make a film not about the crime, but the personalities involved.  

Sandra is written as a cipher and that can be interpreted as trying to make her innocence or guilt at question. But it also explains the dynamics of her relationship with the deceased. Vincent is also a writer. Not as successful as his wife. This leads to all sorts of issues in the marriage, we are assured by Sandra. None predicated by her. Guilt, depression, anger.

A lesser film would present this information as a red herring; a distraction before revealing something more outrageous. While "Fall" seems to move towards a surprise ending. But that's not the way the "Fall" works.  

Here, Triet seeks to tell a family drama hijacked by the sensationism of a crime story. While Vincent is only seen in flashbacks, he haunts the rest of the film. Whether an intentional act or an accident, Sandra and Daniel must reconcile with the loss. The outcome of the trial will provide neither justice nor relief. The surprise at the end is that life has to move on.  

The film's cool detachment is quite intentional in trying to separate the characters from their circumstances. To show that tragedy isn't just fodder for true-crime docuseries or podcasts, but what mark it leaves and how everyone involved can be a victim.  

"Anatomy of a Fall" plays this week at Ragtag Cinema . It's a great start to the 2023 awards season roster.  

James Owen is the Tribune's film columnist. In real life, he is a lawyer and executive director of energy policy group Renew Missouri. A graduate of Drury University and the University of Kansas, he created Filmsnobs.com, where he co-hosts a podcast. He enjoyed an extended stint as an on-air film critic for KY3, the NBC affiliate in Springfield, and now regularly guests on Columbia radio station KFRU.

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Cannes favorite 'Anatomy of a Fall' brings crucial look at trauma to Ragtag