Anatomie d’une Chute (2023)

A tennis ball falling down the stairs (opening scene of the film)
The decline of an individual
The decline of a marriage
Anatomy of fall

Which descent is analyzed in this chain? It is known that many things are falling or in the process of falling in the film. So, what will be our focus?

The power of Triet’s film lies not only in illuminating a single event that is the only truth but also in focusing on the relativity of hypotheses trying to take their place in the void of truth, the absence of absolute knowledge, and how the fragments of truth are filled in the void.

“Memory and forgetting are realities in solidarity, and both are necessary for a complete evaluation of time,” says Mark Auge. Here, let’s replace forgetting with “concealment” as another perception of truth. Or “transmitting as one wants to remember.” Fallible memory finds its place in the film as sublayers traced in the ambiguity of language and truth as manipulation.

There is more beyond the sides swept by the moving camera in the courtroom scenes. The complex nature of human psychology and personal and professional boundaries lies on the anatomy table of the court. What we gaze at with astonishment, like the students in Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lesson, are the descents we investigate by departing from the focus of the crime; the dismantling of marriage, the relationship being stripped away from its intimacy, the grenular nature of possible causes. Realities in an emotional relationship are undoubtedly subjective, even for Sandra and Samuel who experience it; perhaps they are the unseen realities that cause the descent. Could the blindness of the couple’s son Daniel due to an accident caused by the family be a metaphor for this?

Moments when the court deviates from the focus of the subject reinforce the ambiguity of truth, even in the trial of a writer’s fictional plans to murder his wife. The misogynistic attitude of the lawyer is in line with the instrumental version of the “P.I.M.P.” song that pierces the ears throughout the film. Can the film be called feminist? Although it is not the focus of the film, this situation is also ambiguous, but there is a free, intelligent, socially questioning woman portrayed by Sandra Hüller (known from Toni Erdmann) brilliantly performed.

*It must be acknowledged the dramatic power of the film’s sound universe. Both in the repetitions of P.I.M.P. and in every stroke of the piano keys as Daniel plays Chopin preludes, accompanies the audience on their challenging journey in the film universe. Diagetic – non-diagetic transitions, L and J cuts are skillfully used.

While watching the film, it is inevitable to recall Kieslowski’s “A Short Film About Killing.” In a world where the distinction between guilty and innocent becomes blurred, both films observe from an observer’s position in terms of questioning how justice should be questioned, the uncompromising nature of relationships, how individuals get lost in these conflicts, how individuals resist societal norms, and finally, in the context of questioning society’s perspective on crime and moral values.

Triet’s latest work, with its layered structure and compelling psychological analyses, rightly caught the attention of important festivals such as Cannes, Locarno, and Sydney. (Currently, it has 65 awards and 179 nominations). His subsequent films have already entered the radar of cinephiles.

by Nil Birinci