Anatomy of a Fall

AroView: An extraordinary, multi-layered dramatic thriller from France that deservingly won the Palm D’or at Cannes.

There is a dead body and someone who may or may not be responsible. There are layers of intrigue that build in intensity and sophistication, and there is a rewarding pay-off you don’t see coming. Plus a fully fleshed-out backstory and protagonist, superbly played by Sandra Hüller, whose German nationality elegantly integrates into the multi-lingual narrative. At the risk of overhype, adult dramas rarely get better than this.

Synopsis: For the past year, Sandra, a German writer, her French 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 committed suicide or was killed. Samuel’s death is treated as suspicious, presumed murder, and Sandra becomes the main suspect. Little by little, the trial becomes not just an investigation of the circumstances of Samuel’s death, but an unsettling psychological journey into the depths of Sandra and Samuel’s conflicted relationship.

“Triet’s breathtakingly intelligent and subtly perverse masterpiece takes the long way through the cold and the snow to address, in nuanced but never ambiguous terms, the ineffable and irreducible mystery at the heart of deep relationships.” ~Elena Lazic, The Playlist

“This whole film has a wizardry to it which you’ll be thinking about for days.” ~Tim Robey, The Telegraph