Awards season has come and gone once again, like another overblown, overwrought, overlong thief in the night, spanning an impressive seven months from the beginning of the Venice Film Festival to that of the Academy Awards. Though, unlike other years, there were quite a few films in major contention last year that premiered not during any of the fall festivals, but that of Cannes, the prestigious, stuffy, occasionally avant-garde French film festival known for their boldness both in the films they show and the veracity of the audiences getting to watch those films, unafraid to shower films they love in 15-minute standing ovations, or equally as long sessions of resounding boos, nothing is off limits for Cannes. Last year, Cannes premieres made up three of the 10 Best Picture nominees: Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest (winner of the Grand Prix at Cannes), and the topic of discussion here today, winner of Best Original Screenplay, and more importantly, winner of the Palme d’Or, the highest honor of the Cannes Film Festival, Anatomy of a Fall (Anatomie d’une chute), on the occasion of its highly-anticipated Criterion Collection Blu-ray release.
Sandra Hüller as Sandra Voyter in Justine Triet’s ANATOMY OF A FALL. Photo courtesy of The Criterion Collection/NEON.
Sandra Voyter (Sandra Hüller) is a German author living outside of Grenoble in the French alps with her French husband and fellow author, Samuel Maleski (Samuel Theis), their blind son, Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner), and his service dog, Snoop (Messi!). Sandra has a tough time living in France after moving from London at her husband’s insistence; she doesn’t speak French, locals do not accept her, and her relationship with her husband is strained because of it. When Samuel falls from the top story attic while doing construction and is killed from the fall, doubt begins to swirl around Sandra about whether or not his death was the accident she claims it to have been. When she is charged with the murder of her husband, she retains the services of attorney and old friend Vincent Renzi (Swann Arlaud) to represent her in court. As the highly-publicized trial begins, the reality of the level of strain that Sandra and Samuel were living with comes out, and with the work of a passionate prosecutor (Antoine Reinartz), even the audience is tasked with the question “Did she do it?”
L-R: Jehnny Beth as Marge Berger, Milo Machado-Graner as Daniel, and Sandra Hüller as Sandra Voyter in Justine Triet’s ANATOMY OF A FALL. Photo courtesy of The Criterion Collection/NEON.
I remember when learning that Anatomy of a Fall won the Palme d’Or, my initial feelings were slightly underwhelmed that something that sounded like a standard courtroom drama won over more unique sounding films like The Zone of Interest and May December, feelings that faded away quickly once I realized, in theaters, what was taking place and the depth and humanity that co-writer/director Justine Triet (Sibyl) finds with this film. The film isn’t about the crime itself, or even the trial, but of the circumstances in which someone can, or perhaps can’t, bring themselves to betray their own morals, and, in turn, the trust of those closest to them, due to the intensity of their frustrations. Conversely, when the film places its focus to Sandra’s son, Daniel, we’re faced with watching a child reckon with the idea of both his parents being more tortured than he knew, and having to dig deep within the most mundane recesses of his memories to lead breadcrumbs to anything resembling truth. Triet and co-writer (and husband) Arthur Harari (Sibyl) balance these ever-changing scales of the nature of truth, morality, public opinion, social status within France, and the complexities of marriage with as precise of a laser as the laser that carved both of their names onto the Best Original Screenplay Oscar statuette they both received for the film.
A scene within Justine Triet’s ANATOMY OF A FALL. Photo courtesy of The Criterion Collection/NEON.
For as masterful as Triet and Harari’s screenplay is, Anatomy of a Fall is nothing without its genuinely pitch-perfect cast assembled, with a jaw-droppingly magnificent Hüller (The Zone of Interest) at its center (who, frankly, should have been the one to take home the Best Actress Oscar, but I digress). Unlike other leading performances of last year, Hüller’s performance as Sandra isn’t as flashy or as physical as say, Emma Stone’s Bella Baxter in Poor Things, or as soul-wrenching as Lily Gladstone’s Mollie Burkhart in Killers of the Flower Moon, but something far more medium-affirming. There are some performances that can only work in the film format, and Sandra Voyter is one that features far too many subtleties just in Hüller’s face alone that could never work in the style of acting needed for stage performances. This is the sort of performance that exhilarates my love for the medium of film, and Hüller deserves every bit of praise she has received for such a performance. Yet, it’s also that of Machado-Graner (Waiting for Bojangles) as Daniel that should be in the same breath as Hüller in terms of performance, and how he escaped without a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his third-act monologue alone will forever be a mystery to me. Tear-stained and confused, Machado-Graner’s turn as a young boy torn apart by his family’s brutal dissolution, and the realization of his role in his parents’ discord takes your breath away as he finds himself having to grow up seemingly in real-time as his world comes crashing down, and a newer, darker one is built in its stead.
Milo Machado-Graner as Daniel in Justine Triet’s ANATOMY OF A FALL. Photo courtesy of The Criterion Collection/NEON.
Criterion’s Blu-ray release (only available in the standard Blu-ray format, with no 4K Ultra-HD release announced), even for the “lesser” format it’s released on, is a stunner, particularly for a film that doesn’t contain much flashy visuals or audio effects to speak of. The 2K digital master of the film is beautifully film-like with a lovely texture highly reminiscent of 35 mm film, despite the fact the film was shot digitally on an Arri Alexa Mini. Clarity is also a complete non-issue, with a 1080p image that really could pass as a 4K image without clarification (something I noted with Criterion’s excellent transfer of The Others (2001) on Blu-ray, despite the fact that it was also released on 4K, I couldn’t imagine it looking better than it did). The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 audio track is also impeccably mixed, even if it is mixed almost exclusively in the front channels of the soundscape, however, in its brief moments of filling the scene with beautiful piano pieces, the sound comes alive and brings together an inscrutable, unfussy A/V transfer, altogether unsurprising from Criterion.
L-R: Swann Arlaud as Vincent Renzi and Sandra Hüller as Sandra Voyter in Justine Triet’s ANATOMY OF A FALL. Photo courtesy of The Criterion Collection/NEON.
Like most Criterion releases of recent films, the special features included with the release aren’t the most abundant, if only because of a lack of time needed to prepare an immense set of features, as well as the lack of time passed since release needed for the many retrospective pieces that populate its catalog titles. Still, of what they could do in the given timeline, this is a pleasing set of features that vastly outpaces anything that Decal would’ve done in an in-house NEON Blu-ray release (that also goes for its A/V transfer, too). Special features are as follows:
- 2K digital master, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- New interview with director Justine Triet
- Deleted and alternate scenes with commentary by Triet
- Audition footage of actors Milo Machado Graner and Antoine Reinartz and rehearsal footage of Machado Graner and actor Sandra Hüller
- Short program about the dog who plays Snoop, featuring trainer Laura Martin
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing and English descriptive audio
- PLUS: An essay by critic Alexandra Schwartz
Did she do it? Did she not do it? These are the questions that Anatomy of a Fall wants you to think it’s asking (so much so that the theatrical release had a pre-film title card asking you to vote online what you think, which is sadly not included in this release), but the reality is that it doesn’t particularly matter. Whatever the truth is doesn’t change the reality that these characters lived, and the new reality that they will live in the shadow of Samuel’s death. What isn’t up for debate is how quality of a release Criterion has unsurprisingly furnished for this very special title, with a pitch-perfect A/V transfer, and good, if not particularly abundant special features for those interested in diving a little further into Triet and Harari’s tense little world here. The rest? Well, Anatomy of a Fall is unconcerned with the standard conventions of the courtroom drama, looking less for its “a-ha!’ moment in the search for the soul of the trial’s participants at its core. Whether or not you think that anyone involved has one is, like everything else Anatomy of a Fall posits, up to you.
Available on Blu-ray and DVD May 28th, 2024.
For more information, head to the official Criterion Collection Anatomy of a Fall webpage.
Share this:
Categories: Films To Watch, Home Release, Home Video, Recommendation, Reviews
Leave a Reply