Anatomy of a Fall (2023)
December 27, 2023 1:22 AM - Subscribe
A woman is suspected of her husband's murder, and their blind son faces a moral dilemma as the main witness.
For the past year, Sandra, her husband Samuel, and their eleven-year-old son Daniel have lived a secluded life in a remote town in the French Alps. When Samuel is found dead in the snow below their chalet, the police question whether he was murdered or committed suicide. Samuel's suspicious death is presumed murder, and Sandra becomes the main suspect. What follows is not just an investigation into the circumstances of Samuel's death but an unsettling psychological journey into the depths of Sandra and Samuel's conflicted relationship.
Wendy Ide: Even with that in mind, however, there’s plenty of ammunition for the prosecution. As with Saint Omer, it’s more than just a woman on trial here. Just as Diop’s drama wove into its court case an examination of race, class and the status of the female migrant in French society, so Triet seeds the film with questions about divisions of labour, about the role of the wife within marriage and about society’s profound discomfort around a woman who not only takes what she wants from life, but refuses to apologise for it.
The fact that Sandra prioritises her career over her share of the childcare, cannibalises her own life and those of others for her writing (a theme that links back to Triet’s previous film, Sibyl) and unashamedly admits to having bisexual relationships during her marriage doesn’t make her guilty of murder. But neither does it conform to the role of victimhood that the accused woman is expected to play. Triet further supports this perception by frequently placing the camera slightly below Sandra – subliminally suggesting that she is a powerful, dominating, even threatening presence – rather than above her, looking down.
Clarisse Loughrey: Yet, it’s hard not to be drawn in. That’s the trick of Anatomy of a Fall. Sandra is a fascinating, one-woman puzzle box, thanks largely to the strength of Hüller’s performance. As an actor, she has always thrown herself at this kind of impenetrable role – as the cold, worker bee daughter in 2016’s absurdist comedy Toni Erdmann, or the wife of a commandant at Auschwitz in Jonathan Glazer’s forthcoming The Zone of Interest.
Sandra can be cruel. She loves her son. Maybe she’s manipulative. It’s heartbreaking when, as a German native in a French court of law, she struggles to communicate. Occasionally, this strong-headed, determined woman can seem as lost as a child. But, when Anatomy of a Fall reaches its conclusion, we’re met not with vindication but with an aching silence – and it’s then that our fascination threatens to transform into complicity.
Mattie Lucas: Sandra Hüller delivers an absolutely devastating performance - is she a murderer? A woman at the end of her rope? A victim of circumstance? We never really know for sure, and that's part of what makes Anatomy of a Fall so fascinating. Triet presents the evidence and lets us make up our own mind - her crackerjack screenplay (co-written by Arthur Harari) humming with raw and rare kind of emotional honesty. She uses sound design and perspective to suggest what's real and what isn't, but even then, do the things we know are lies and fabrications exonerate or condemn Sandra?
It's a deeply perceptive study of the very concept of reasonable doubt, and how arriving at "truth" when so many perspectives are involved can be all but impossible, even for those involved. Anatomy of a Fall a masterclass from start to finish; the courtroom scenes make up some of the most riveting cinema in recent memory, but it's the scenes of martial strife at home that really linger. The ways in which couples zero in on each other's insecurities seemingly innocuous disagreements hits especially hard. But Triet reminds us that we're merely observers, seeing a few minutes of a much larger relationship - can we truly judge what's going on here from just a brief glimpse of two hurt people at their most vulnerable? Ultimately, the tagline "did she do it?" matters far less than the unnerving impactions at how humans convince themselves of what the truth is. No other film this year has asked questions so powerful or left doubts so haunting.
Trailer
For the past year, Sandra, her husband Samuel, and their eleven-year-old son Daniel have lived a secluded life in a remote town in the French Alps. When Samuel is found dead in the snow below their chalet, the police question whether he was murdered or committed suicide. Samuel's suspicious death is presumed murder, and Sandra becomes the main suspect. What follows is not just an investigation into the circumstances of Samuel's death but an unsettling psychological journey into the depths of Sandra and Samuel's conflicted relationship.
Wendy Ide: Even with that in mind, however, there’s plenty of ammunition for the prosecution. As with Saint Omer, it’s more than just a woman on trial here. Just as Diop’s drama wove into its court case an examination of race, class and the status of the female migrant in French society, so Triet seeds the film with questions about divisions of labour, about the role of the wife within marriage and about society’s profound discomfort around a woman who not only takes what she wants from life, but refuses to apologise for it.
The fact that Sandra prioritises her career over her share of the childcare, cannibalises her own life and those of others for her writing (a theme that links back to Triet’s previous film, Sibyl) and unashamedly admits to having bisexual relationships during her marriage doesn’t make her guilty of murder. But neither does it conform to the role of victimhood that the accused woman is expected to play. Triet further supports this perception by frequently placing the camera slightly below Sandra – subliminally suggesting that she is a powerful, dominating, even threatening presence – rather than above her, looking down.
Clarisse Loughrey: Yet, it’s hard not to be drawn in. That’s the trick of Anatomy of a Fall. Sandra is a fascinating, one-woman puzzle box, thanks largely to the strength of Hüller’s performance. As an actor, she has always thrown herself at this kind of impenetrable role – as the cold, worker bee daughter in 2016’s absurdist comedy Toni Erdmann, or the wife of a commandant at Auschwitz in Jonathan Glazer’s forthcoming The Zone of Interest.
Sandra can be cruel. She loves her son. Maybe she’s manipulative. It’s heartbreaking when, as a German native in a French court of law, she struggles to communicate. Occasionally, this strong-headed, determined woman can seem as lost as a child. But, when Anatomy of a Fall reaches its conclusion, we’re met not with vindication but with an aching silence – and it’s then that our fascination threatens to transform into complicity.
Mattie Lucas: Sandra Hüller delivers an absolutely devastating performance - is she a murderer? A woman at the end of her rope? A victim of circumstance? We never really know for sure, and that's part of what makes Anatomy of a Fall so fascinating. Triet presents the evidence and lets us make up our own mind - her crackerjack screenplay (co-written by Arthur Harari) humming with raw and rare kind of emotional honesty. She uses sound design and perspective to suggest what's real and what isn't, but even then, do the things we know are lies and fabrications exonerate or condemn Sandra?
It's a deeply perceptive study of the very concept of reasonable doubt, and how arriving at "truth" when so many perspectives are involved can be all but impossible, even for those involved. Anatomy of a Fall a masterclass from start to finish; the courtroom scenes make up some of the most riveting cinema in recent memory, but it's the scenes of martial strife at home that really linger. The ways in which couples zero in on each other's insecurities seemingly innocuous disagreements hits especially hard. But Triet reminds us that we're merely observers, seeing a few minutes of a much larger relationship - can we truly judge what's going on here from just a brief glimpse of two hurt people at their most vulnerable? Ultimately, the tagline "did she do it?" matters far less than the unnerving impactions at how humans convince themselves of what the truth is. No other film this year has asked questions so powerful or left doubts so haunting.
Trailer
Oh, I also thought Noah Berlatsky's review had some really solid points as well.
But the evidence isn’t that ambiguous, and nor is Hüller’s (excellent) performance. There are no witnesses, no weapon, and a circumstantial motive, and Sandra’s entirely believable grief, fear, and concern never really looks opaque or deceitful. She hesitates, vacillates, and even lies, but they’re the hesitation, vacillation, and lies of truth—it’s a masterclass in the performance of non-performance.
With little to build a case on, either in fact or affect, why is the case even brought to court? The answer is that while Sandra doesn’t have much evidence against her, she is on the wrong end of a whole lot of tropes and narratives. As a successful, brilliant, bisexual professional woman with an active sex life, she’s perfectly cast by stereotype to be a manipulator and liar.
posted by Carillon at 1:46 AM on December 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
But the evidence isn’t that ambiguous, and nor is Hüller’s (excellent) performance. There are no witnesses, no weapon, and a circumstantial motive, and Sandra’s entirely believable grief, fear, and concern never really looks opaque or deceitful. She hesitates, vacillates, and even lies, but they’re the hesitation, vacillation, and lies of truth—it’s a masterclass in the performance of non-performance.
With little to build a case on, either in fact or affect, why is the case even brought to court? The answer is that while Sandra doesn’t have much evidence against her, she is on the wrong end of a whole lot of tropes and narratives. As a successful, brilliant, bisexual professional woman with an active sex life, she’s perfectly cast by stereotype to be a manipulator and liar.
posted by Carillon at 1:46 AM on December 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Superb, powerful film, easily the best I saw this year. Whatever nitpicky issues I had with it don't really matter. Hopefully more people will see the film once the Academy has legitimized it.
posted by Flashman at 9:53 AM on January 5 [1 favorite]
posted by Flashman at 9:53 AM on January 5 [1 favorite]
I posted a double of this later the same day apparently; I may have started the post before this was up and finished it hours later. I didn't notice until just now.
My main comment from there:
posted by fleacircus at 4:32 PM on January 6 [1 favorite]
My main comment from there:
I like Sandra Hüller. I think it's a fun excavation of a relationship and relationships in general; it has more to say than Marriage Story which imho has not much more to say than here's some characters who did these things. It's "cerebral" in the sense that the characters are a bit detached, but the movie itself is not trying to be difficult about anything, beyond being vague about what actually happened. And I think the movie does a really good job of swinging back and forth between the possibilities.On another site I wrote, "Watch this is if u've ever felt like a German trapped in France" and I stand by that.
I loved the shot where the father is perfectly lip-syncing along with the son's testimony.
posted by fleacircus at 4:32 PM on January 6 [1 favorite]
As a successful, brilliant, bisexual professional woman with an active sex life, she’s perfectly cast by stereotype to be a manipulator and liar.
I don't think it's that clear that she didn't do it. I feel the movie is saying that a lot of the surface details -- that she's a woman, she's bisexual, that she's German, etc -- are not relevant at all. and it's very loudly saying it's so impossible to know and judge a person from such little information. I don't think she's set up to be disbelieved by the audience, therefore not thus becoming a simple yas queen vindication thing like Richard Brody seems to think. I think the film is fairly directly saying that shallow analysis (incl identity type stuff) to reach the narrative conclusion is wrong! It criticizes its critics lol.
That's possibly my own projection but I feel like it's backed up pretty well and the film is practically looking right into the camera as it says it.
The son's choice, and the advice of his court-appointed minder, is interesting. Does he lie? Or is he picking which truth to tell, being selective to tell the story, to pick the reality he wants and create it?
posted by fleacircus at 4:54 PM on January 6 [2 favorites]
I don't think it's that clear that she didn't do it. I feel the movie is saying that a lot of the surface details -- that she's a woman, she's bisexual, that she's German, etc -- are not relevant at all. and it's very loudly saying it's so impossible to know and judge a person from such little information. I don't think she's set up to be disbelieved by the audience, therefore not thus becoming a simple yas queen vindication thing like Richard Brody seems to think. I think the film is fairly directly saying that shallow analysis (incl identity type stuff) to reach the narrative conclusion is wrong! It criticizes its critics lol.
That's possibly my own projection but I feel like it's backed up pretty well and the film is practically looking right into the camera as it says it.
The son's choice, and the advice of his court-appointed minder, is interesting. Does he lie? Or is he picking which truth to tell, being selective to tell the story, to pick the reality he wants and create it?
posted by fleacircus at 4:54 PM on January 6 [2 favorites]
FWIW - We decided that after his conversation with Marge (the child advocate/"guardian"), where she talks about "deciding what you believe", Daniel essentially 'decided' his mother was innocent, and then created a scenario to help bring that about by testifying his father said all those things.
Sitting in court, Daniel was able to observe what sounded believable, and how he might influence the decision-making process. I mean, it's very likely that he and his father did have a car conversation en route to the vet; but was it THAT exact one? Hmm. Unclear.
The difference in the car scene vs. the "transcript" scene was, in that fight, we watched Sandra and Samuel speak their words in their own voices. In Daniel's story, his father simply spoke Daniel's words in Daniel's voice. It just seemed less "real." Also, we thought his asking Sandra to leave the house before he testified was clearly designed to give him space to enact his plan with Snoop.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 11:28 AM on January 10 [3 favorites]
Sitting in court, Daniel was able to observe what sounded believable, and how he might influence the decision-making process. I mean, it's very likely that he and his father did have a car conversation en route to the vet; but was it THAT exact one? Hmm. Unclear.
The difference in the car scene vs. the "transcript" scene was, in that fight, we watched Sandra and Samuel speak their words in their own voices. In Daniel's story, his father simply spoke Daniel's words in Daniel's voice. It just seemed less "real." Also, we thought his asking Sandra to leave the house before he testified was clearly designed to give him space to enact his plan with Snoop.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 11:28 AM on January 10 [3 favorites]
Yes I think he thought his mother might have done it, so he holds his own little trial; he conducts an experiment that is certainly not actually scientific proof, and maybe he picks the outcome he desires but maybe it's based on true testimony ie is just like the court..
posted by fleacircus at 12:51 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]
posted by fleacircus at 12:51 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]
Hmmm, I didn’t think it was the “obvious lie” that ya’ll seem to think it was how Sandra had learned to work and sleep with earplugs. She was living with a toxically passive aggressive domestic abuser who enjoyed dirty tricks like playing loud (and misogynistic) music when she was trying to work; she and Daniel both had to adapt to survive Samuel’s crazy antics.
Is there no reasonable doubt doctrine in the French legal system? Hearsay testimony is totally fine? My god.
Anyway, this was maybe the best cinematic example of DARVO and covert abuse (by the unhinged, controlling husband Samuel - come on people now…) maybe ever on film. As an aside here, I don’t for one minute think Monsieur “charismatic” (to outsiders) Samuel was actually faithful in that marriage - he clearly HAAAATED Sandra, and was great at making her out to be the only cheater. Samuel set her up. (He set her up like the episode of Star Trek: TOS where Kirk’s rival had him set up and tried for his murder, and his rival’s daughter went after him too, until the truth came out, but I digress.) He knew patriarchy would eat Sandra alive. He knew his little local francophone world would take his side #mensmentalhealth.
I love the complication of how Sandra was not our shrinking violet stereotypical survivor of intimate partner violence and coercive control; Sandra isn’t the “correct” kind of survivor who cowered and became utterly codependent and centering all of King Baby’s moody whims. And she was punished for it. I’m one of the people who immediately saw Samuel’s coercively controlling patterns while perpetually playing the victim of his own crappy life choices that isolated his wife and child from the broader community, too, to wit: marooning Sandra and Daniel in his crappy, remote hometown, his weaponized incompetence with the renovations and finances, his rageful, deafening music playing, treating the woman interviewer guest in their home with misogynistic contempt, his palpable jealousy of Sandra’s career success in the face of his coercive control, the enforced French speaking to defend herself both in her marriage and in court, Samuel secretly taped conversations, for the covert abuse it was.
Her lawyers (gosh they stayed mellow) never raised the obvious defense of: If she allegedly bludgeoned him about his head, why wasn’t there ANY blood spatter anywhere in the residence? Nary a drop on ANY part of the exterior of the house above??
Playing Samuel’s secret audio of him yelling and falling apart that culminated in a physical altercation with Sandra took me out. This is the prosecution’s best evidence here??? Because damn, that man sounds ready, willing and able to off himself and blame her!
I don’t know ya’ll, this one seemed like an obvious Not Guilty. It was abuse of Sandra and Daniel through the legal system.
posted by edithkeeler at 2:42 AM on January 30 [5 favorites]
Is there no reasonable doubt doctrine in the French legal system? Hearsay testimony is totally fine? My god.
Anyway, this was maybe the best cinematic example of DARVO and covert abuse (by the unhinged, controlling husband Samuel - come on people now…) maybe ever on film. As an aside here, I don’t for one minute think Monsieur “charismatic” (to outsiders) Samuel was actually faithful in that marriage - he clearly HAAAATED Sandra, and was great at making her out to be the only cheater. Samuel set her up. (He set her up like the episode of Star Trek: TOS where Kirk’s rival had him set up and tried for his murder, and his rival’s daughter went after him too, until the truth came out, but I digress.) He knew patriarchy would eat Sandra alive. He knew his little local francophone world would take his side #mensmentalhealth.
I love the complication of how Sandra was not our shrinking violet stereotypical survivor of intimate partner violence and coercive control; Sandra isn’t the “correct” kind of survivor who cowered and became utterly codependent and centering all of King Baby’s moody whims. And she was punished for it. I’m one of the people who immediately saw Samuel’s coercively controlling patterns while perpetually playing the victim of his own crappy life choices that isolated his wife and child from the broader community, too, to wit: marooning Sandra and Daniel in his crappy, remote hometown, his weaponized incompetence with the renovations and finances, his rageful, deafening music playing, treating the woman interviewer guest in their home with misogynistic contempt, his palpable jealousy of Sandra’s career success in the face of his coercive control, the enforced French speaking to defend herself both in her marriage and in court, Samuel secretly taped conversations, for the covert abuse it was.
Her lawyers (gosh they stayed mellow) never raised the obvious defense of: If she allegedly bludgeoned him about his head, why wasn’t there ANY blood spatter anywhere in the residence? Nary a drop on ANY part of the exterior of the house above??
Playing Samuel’s secret audio of him yelling and falling apart that culminated in a physical altercation with Sandra took me out. This is the prosecution’s best evidence here??? Because damn, that man sounds ready, willing and able to off himself and blame her!
I don’t know ya’ll, this one seemed like an obvious Not Guilty. It was abuse of Sandra and Daniel through the legal system.
posted by edithkeeler at 2:42 AM on January 30 [5 favorites]
I'll admit I hadn't considered passive aggressive DARVO suicide as a possibility.
posted by fleacircus at 1:01 PM on January 30 [2 favorites]
posted by fleacircus at 1:01 PM on January 30 [2 favorites]
Hmmm, I didn’t think it was the “obvious lie” that ya’ll seem to think it was how Sandra had learned to work and sleep with earplugs. She was living with a toxically passive aggressive domestic abuser who enjoyed dirty tricks like playing loud (and misogynistic) music when she was trying to work; she and Daniel both had to adapt to survive Samuel’s crazy antics.
I was a notoriously light sleeper until I lived in a very small house with two night owls that had no sense of what volume the television was at. It was easier to learn how to tune it out than to constantly negotiate the noise level. So I very much believed Sandra's testimony about this.
Is there no reasonable doubt doctrine in the French legal system? Hearsay testimony is totally fine? My god.
This got me too. Makes me want to learn more about the French system because that was wild.
I don’t know ya’ll, this one seemed like an obvious Not Guilty.
For me too. But also I think the point wasn't whether she did it or not, but more about dissecting the relationship and how relationships are perceived by outsiders. The Filmcast did an engaging discussion about this that I really enjoyed after watching the movie.
posted by eekernohan at 11:07 AM on February 13 [2 favorites]
I was a notoriously light sleeper until I lived in a very small house with two night owls that had no sense of what volume the television was at. It was easier to learn how to tune it out than to constantly negotiate the noise level. So I very much believed Sandra's testimony about this.
Is there no reasonable doubt doctrine in the French legal system? Hearsay testimony is totally fine? My god.
This got me too. Makes me want to learn more about the French system because that was wild.
I don’t know ya’ll, this one seemed like an obvious Not Guilty.
For me too. But also I think the point wasn't whether she did it or not, but more about dissecting the relationship and how relationships are perceived by outsiders. The Filmcast did an engaging discussion about this that I really enjoyed after watching the movie.
posted by eekernohan at 11:07 AM on February 13 [2 favorites]
I find myself wanting to talk about this film like the characters in it are real people, which can be the mark of a story that has accomplished its aims. So the question is, did she do it? What do I think, what are we supposed to think?
I think we're supposed to think it's ambiguous. The climax is all about the son making a choice - it's clearly not an easy one for him. He isn't just telling the truth. He's - if not inventing entirely - embellishing, at least. The testimony might not provide much admissible evidence, but emotionally, it's too neat of a resolution, fits too well with the lawyer's characterisation of the husband. So well that at first I thought, sure, this has to be true, how could a kid have come up with this? But of course this is the kid of two writers. He cannot know if his mother is innocent, but he decides to save her anyway.
Sandra herself doesn't agree with her lawyer's characterization of her husband. She tells him right in court, where others might hear, when that's the pillar of his defense, undermining her own best shot at being exculpated. (Are we supposed to think she is at a real risk of being found guilty? I don't know enough about French courts to evaluate that, but I would normally assume there's not much of a case, the accusation is based on too much conjecture. But that's not truly what's at stake here, isn't it, the real stakes are about losing her child's trust and love. The suspense of the court's verdict might be taking artistic licence to dramatize the suspense of the child's verdict.)
Sandra has enough of a self preservation instinct to lie about the bruise, but she hesitates to support the suicide theory. She still doesn't seem to be entirely on board even after she herself has disclosed her husband's first suicide attempt. She's muddling her own story, and it does seem like a mark of counter-productive honesty. It could be manipulation - maybe making her lawyer think she's innocent is just as, if not more, important to her as proving her innocence in court? But it does seem genuine to me. Sandra is presented as someone who almost can't help her honesty. She's straightforward, blunt, she won't smile at her husband's friends, when she's not feeling it, she's showing her true colours, even if it costs her.
I declared Sandra innocent in my mind pretty early in the proceedings, I just couldn't buy the motive. A fit of rage? I kinda never buy that as an explanation, killing seems often like a fairly drawn-out-affair, where you have to commit to see it through, and it certainly does seem so in the scenario presented, where she would have to lift his legs over the windowsill. Like, I could sometimes see someone inadvertently killing a victim they just intended to scare, because they misjudged their power, but it's also hard to see that as a strategy Sandra would use in this scenario. My guess is that fatal domestic violence (without financial motive) is usually either habitual intimidation with miscalculated impact, a honor killing, or the last resort of a cornered animal. And those other options also don't seem to fit Sandra, whose honor doesn't rely on controlling her husband and who always seems to have plenty of agency - if she's unhappy in her marriage, she speaks her mind, she takes a lover; if she's unhappy enough, why wouldn't she just get a divorce?
But isn't that just the textbook mistake? To believe that a strong woman like Sandra would not get trapped in an abusive relationship? (She always seems to have plenty of agency - except when he's ruining her interview with his awful music, and she can't just tell him to shut it off..). Because that husband sure is a piece of work. I'm immediately predisposed against him, before he's even shown on the scene, with his first aural emantion. I grieve for him, when I see the grief of his child. And then he's on my eternal shitlist again, when he accuses his wife of always forcing others to meet her on her own territory, when he's just roped her into moving to his home-town. Because he has to speak English with her instead of his native tongue French, when she doesn't get to speak her native tongue German to him either! The gall of it! Shit's so transparent, it's adding insult to injury.
So the husand certainly _tries_to trap her, in isolation, in guilt, but doesn't she see through it, when she reads him for filth in that climactic altercation? Shouldn't that be enough to break the spell? Would she have to resort to violence to escape?
For what it's worth, I think the laywer's theory is much more likely. Husband tries it, and fails, and sees that his guilt trips won't work on her much longer. He's the one who's cornered. And I wouldn't put it past him to pull a Gone Girl and choose his exit in a way that frames the wife he blames for all his miseries. Vindictive self-destruction. Also fits well with the injuries to his knuckles and the holes in the walls, for which we do, after all, see objective evidence. But maybe I would believe any theory presented by Swann Arlaud (who, since we're talking about imagining animals' heads on people's bodies, obviously looks like a stoat. A beautiful stoat. I've been keenly waiting for Sandra Hüller to say it in that last scene they have together, when she cradles his head and looks deep into his eyes. But this film is really all about witholding resolution.)
posted by sohalt at 2:41 PM on March 9 [2 favorites]
I think we're supposed to think it's ambiguous. The climax is all about the son making a choice - it's clearly not an easy one for him. He isn't just telling the truth. He's - if not inventing entirely - embellishing, at least. The testimony might not provide much admissible evidence, but emotionally, it's too neat of a resolution, fits too well with the lawyer's characterisation of the husband. So well that at first I thought, sure, this has to be true, how could a kid have come up with this? But of course this is the kid of two writers. He cannot know if his mother is innocent, but he decides to save her anyway.
Sandra herself doesn't agree with her lawyer's characterization of her husband. She tells him right in court, where others might hear, when that's the pillar of his defense, undermining her own best shot at being exculpated. (Are we supposed to think she is at a real risk of being found guilty? I don't know enough about French courts to evaluate that, but I would normally assume there's not much of a case, the accusation is based on too much conjecture. But that's not truly what's at stake here, isn't it, the real stakes are about losing her child's trust and love. The suspense of the court's verdict might be taking artistic licence to dramatize the suspense of the child's verdict.)
Sandra has enough of a self preservation instinct to lie about the bruise, but she hesitates to support the suicide theory. She still doesn't seem to be entirely on board even after she herself has disclosed her husband's first suicide attempt. She's muddling her own story, and it does seem like a mark of counter-productive honesty. It could be manipulation - maybe making her lawyer think she's innocent is just as, if not more, important to her as proving her innocence in court? But it does seem genuine to me. Sandra is presented as someone who almost can't help her honesty. She's straightforward, blunt, she won't smile at her husband's friends, when she's not feeling it, she's showing her true colours, even if it costs her.
I declared Sandra innocent in my mind pretty early in the proceedings, I just couldn't buy the motive. A fit of rage? I kinda never buy that as an explanation, killing seems often like a fairly drawn-out-affair, where you have to commit to see it through, and it certainly does seem so in the scenario presented, where she would have to lift his legs over the windowsill. Like, I could sometimes see someone inadvertently killing a victim they just intended to scare, because they misjudged their power, but it's also hard to see that as a strategy Sandra would use in this scenario. My guess is that fatal domestic violence (without financial motive) is usually either habitual intimidation with miscalculated impact, a honor killing, or the last resort of a cornered animal. And those other options also don't seem to fit Sandra, whose honor doesn't rely on controlling her husband and who always seems to have plenty of agency - if she's unhappy in her marriage, she speaks her mind, she takes a lover; if she's unhappy enough, why wouldn't she just get a divorce?
But isn't that just the textbook mistake? To believe that a strong woman like Sandra would not get trapped in an abusive relationship? (She always seems to have plenty of agency - except when he's ruining her interview with his awful music, and she can't just tell him to shut it off..). Because that husband sure is a piece of work. I'm immediately predisposed against him, before he's even shown on the scene, with his first aural emantion. I grieve for him, when I see the grief of his child. And then he's on my eternal shitlist again, when he accuses his wife of always forcing others to meet her on her own territory, when he's just roped her into moving to his home-town. Because he has to speak English with her instead of his native tongue French, when she doesn't get to speak her native tongue German to him either! The gall of it! Shit's so transparent, it's adding insult to injury.
So the husand certainly _tries_to trap her, in isolation, in guilt, but doesn't she see through it, when she reads him for filth in that climactic altercation? Shouldn't that be enough to break the spell? Would she have to resort to violence to escape?
For what it's worth, I think the laywer's theory is much more likely. Husband tries it, and fails, and sees that his guilt trips won't work on her much longer. He's the one who's cornered. And I wouldn't put it past him to pull a Gone Girl and choose his exit in a way that frames the wife he blames for all his miseries. Vindictive self-destruction. Also fits well with the injuries to his knuckles and the holes in the walls, for which we do, after all, see objective evidence. But maybe I would believe any theory presented by Swann Arlaud (who, since we're talking about imagining animals' heads on people's bodies, obviously looks like a stoat. A beautiful stoat. I've been keenly waiting for Sandra Hüller to say it in that last scene they have together, when she cradles his head and looks deep into his eyes. But this film is really all about witholding resolution.)
posted by sohalt at 2:41 PM on March 9 [2 favorites]
Isn’t this just a remake of The Shining?
I did really enjoy this movie, and also reading people’s reactions to it. Once the holes from punching the wall appeared on screen I started to believe in the vindictive suicide theory.
I do like the conspiracy theory that the kid did it. Unlikely but appealing. The dog actor was so good at playing dead; I love how much dogs love doing tricks like these.
posted by catcafe at 8:56 PM on March 25
I did really enjoy this movie, and also reading people’s reactions to it. Once the holes from punching the wall appeared on screen I started to believe in the vindictive suicide theory.
I do like the conspiracy theory that the kid did it. Unlikely but appealing. The dog actor was so good at playing dead; I love how much dogs love doing tricks like these.
posted by catcafe at 8:56 PM on March 25
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I don't think it matters if she did it, the story certainly doesn't seem to care. To me, the line in the Chinese restaurant is at the core of it. She went through this trial, and the state acquitted her, but there is no reward. You still have to move forward. All of that, and it just means you get to live the rest of your life.
The only real sour note was during the trial when we actually see the argument shift from transcript to representation. I felt pulled out because I saw the filmmaker's hand there. Triet couldn't really show the full fight. Given how it plays out, that would impact the audience's feelings towards Sandra depending on which version is true. I get that, but the choice to suddenly pull back gave me vertigo and a sense of feeling cheated. Not because I wanted the drama, but because Triet put us into that reality only to yank the trapdoor out when it got too complicated.
Still just great work all around. The kid, Milo Machado Graner, gave such a great performance for a young actor. Snoop was pretty great too as a dog.
posted by Carillon at 1:44 AM on December 27, 2023 [3 favorites]