Review: Anatomy of a Fall

Anatomy of a Fall is the opening movie for the International Film Festival, a French drama that picked up the prized Palme d'Or at Cannes this year. Stars Sandra Hüller (the Oscar-nominated Toni Erdmann).For me, the description 'winner of the Palme d'Or' is a bit of a mixed blessing. Prestigious, certainly, but not necessarily a guarantee of a great night at the movies. For every personal favourite like I Daniel Blake and Shoplifters, there's an equal number of pretentious rotters like The Square and Titane, which you may remember was essentially Transformers as directed by Jean-Luc Godard.Fortunately, this year's Anatomy of a Fall, directed by Justine Triet, is one of the good ones.It was also picked to open this year's International Film Festival.At two and a half hours, it was a bit of a challenge for an audience looking forward to the subsequent festival party, but it was a challenge triumphantly accepted.The film opens with novelist Sandra being interviewed at her home in the French Pyrenees. She's German, but while she speaks French, she feels more comfortable speaking English. The interview is curtailed when, upstairs, Sandra's neurotic husband starts playing music too loud. The journalist leaves, and so does Sandra and Samuel's 11-year-old son Daniel, who knows there's going to be a fight shortly.Daniel is sight impaired, though he knows his way around the mountain chalet where the family live. And he's the one who discovers the body of his father, after he fell from the top floor. The question being did he fall or was he pushed?The police question Daniel, and the next step, of course, is a trial. If Daniel was out, the only other person in the house at the time was Sandra. What happened, how did it happen, why did it happen, and in the end does it matter? The only thing that matters to Sandra's lawyer and friend Vincent is what can they prove?Most of the film is a court-room drama, though a trial in France is rather different from what we're used to from American or English films. But even before we reach the courthouse, we're intrigued by the three key figures in Anatomy of a Fall - particularly Sandra herself, played by German star Sandra Hüller.Hüller, you may remember, played the put-upon daughter in the Oscar nominee Toni Erdmann. Here she's very much in control. For a start she insists on testifying in English. Less prickly and more likable is Vincent, whose support for Sandra lends her a warmth she certainly doesn't show with her husband…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details