Dan Webster: Themes of betrayal, jealousy, resentment central to French film ‘Anatomy of a Fall’

When a filmmaker wants to create great drama, building a screenplay around a murder trial can be a good thing. Sometimes even a sure thing.

That’s what French writer-director Justine Triet has done with “Anatomy of a Fall,” a feature film that won the top prize – the Palme d’Or – at last May’s Cannes Film Festival.

It helps, of course, that “Anatomy of a Fall” isn’t just a courtroom drama. Triet is also interested in themes of domestic volatility, professional jealousy, lingering blame and resentment, not to mention unfaithfulness and betrayal.

It is the blend of all these themes, underscored by a suspicious death and subsequent murder trial, that gives “Anatomy of a Fall” its inherent power.

The death in question is that of Samuel (played by Samuel Theis), the husband of the successful novelist Sandra (played by Sandra Hüller). He has fallen, or was pushed, from an upper-story window of the mountain cabin the couple has been renting with their son Daniel (played by Milo Machado Graner).

The authorities can’t determine whether Samuel’s death was an accident or murder, but the French prosecutor (played by Antoine Reinartz) decides to charge Sandra anyway. And certain troubling facts gradually come to light.

Years before, while in the care of Samuel, 11-year-old Daniel had been in an accident that caused him to lose much of his sight. The incident caused a marital rift, which was compounded by the jealousy that writer wannabe Samuel felt over Sandra’s literary success.

Then it’s revealed that Sandra responded to her husband’s alienation by having an affair. And on the day of Samuel’s death, he had disrupted an interview that Sandra was giving to a young woman by playing music obnoxiously loud.

Triet, who has made five feature films since 2009, works patiently, crafting scenes that deliver information a little at a time. She holds back just enough information to make it difficult to determine Sandra’s guilt or innocence, even as she re-creates one particular argument that doesn’t portray Sandra in the kindest light.

Yet, as defended by an old friend (played by Swann Arlaud), Sandra – brilliantly portrayed by Hüller – offers up a reasonable answer for every accusation levied against her. What becomes clear is that her greatest fault might be that she’s a German-born woman whose French is so limited that she has to revert to English to defend herself in a French court.

So, yes, the question of Sandra’s guilt is never resolved. But whether she committed murder might not even be the most important query that “Anatomy of a Fall” poses.

A better question might be, how desperate would someone have to be to contemplate murder in the first place?