Don't expect to finish Anatomy of a Fall with a straight answer. While the court case the film follows does reach a legal verdict as to whether protagonist Sandra (Sandra Hüller) murdered her husband Samuel, the film itself never lands on a definitive truth.
Not even Hüller knows: Director Justine Triet, who co-wrote the film with her partner Arthur Harari, wouldn't tell the actor when she asked before filming, unsure how to play the role.
"I have an opinion, of course," says Triet. "But on set, I was very mysterious. I just said, 'OK, you have to play it like she is innocent'."
She adds: "I was obsessed by the editing process. There were a lot of versions — when we started to show it to audiences, sometimes people were saying, 'she's so guilty', you know, sometimes the opposite. It was my goal to be in the middle; to divide opinions."
Difficult to read, Sandra pleads her innocence but never resembles what we expect of the grief-stricken widow. She sheds few tears, and her coldness could be seen as an obvious sign of guilt or of a loveless marriage — one that required cauterised emotions as a form of self-defence.
As we, and the court, consider her guilt, Anatomy of a Fall puts not just Sandra and Samuel's marriage on trial, but the idea of truth itself.
The more we learn about their relationship, the more difficult it becomes to define — whether by the prosecution, the defence or the media.
Loading...While Sandra's guilt or innocence may be up for debate, critics have reached a unanimous verdict on the film: It's received near-universal acclaim, with honours including the Palme D'Or, Cannes Film Festival's top prize and two Golden Globes, for best screenplay and best non-English language movie.
The film has also been nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay — and a Best Actress nomination for Hüller, with much of the praise for Anatomy coming down to her performance.
While Hüller was celebrated for her role in 2016 German comedy Toni Erdmann, this Awards season marks a breakthrough moment for the actor, as she also stars in Jonathan Glazer's acclaimed holocaust film The Zone of Interest, out Australia in February.
Triet says she wrote the role for Hüller, after her "generosity" in a small role in Triet's 2019 film Sibyl blew her away.
"I imagined this part for her because there is a paradox between giving this part to an actress, somebody who is so transparent, [to play] someone in the movie who is ungraspable in a way," says Triet.
"In other movies, you can watch a lot of women be duplicitous or femme fatales. And I love so much the way Sandra was always straight — and very human."
Lost in translation
The titular fall happens in the film's first 10 minutes.
Sandra, a celebrated fiction writer, is being interviewed by a PhD student at her home, an isolated chalet in the French Alps. Her husband, Samuel, is loudly playing a steel drum cover of 50 Cent's P.I.M.P. upstairs.
Forced to reschedule due to the noise, Sandra takes a nap. Their son Daniel, who is blind, takes a walk with his guide dog Snoop, finding his father's body in the snow when he returns.
"The dog's seen everything," laughs Triet. "He's the only one who knows, but he cannot talk. He embodies all the complexity of the question of the truth."
Soon after, Sandra is indicted for murder, with suspicious elements suggesting Samuel was attacked and pushed. Sandra stresses her innocence in court, but both defence and prosecution tear apart the couple's marriage and even characters from Sandra's novels .
But Sandra's biggest hurdle proves to be language. The family spoke English at home, a "meeting place" between her German and Samuel's French, but the trial is in French — the language she is least comfortable speaking.
Not only does Sandra risk fumbling words while defending herself, she faces losing herself in the process.
Anyone who speaks multiple languages, or has attempted to, knows how easy it is to lose tone or nuanced meaning in translation. And Sandra's not exactly the warmest person to begin with.
"It's tough for [Sandra] to describe what she lived," Triet says. "The question of language and of being a German person being judged in France was really interesting for me.
"Language is the core of the movie … It's a metaphor for the couple, how they are not able to understand each other."
"I wanted to show the spectator the difficulties of [translation]. It's a way to keep it real; a way of making how they couldn't understand each other tangible and physical."
Anatomy of a Fall is in cinemas from January 25.