Anatomy of a Fall

Original Title: Anatomie d'une chute 

Duration: 152 minutes Country: France 

Language: French, German, and English with English Subtitles 

Director(s): Justine Triet  

How often do men simply fall to their deaths? In Anatomy of a Fall, the 2024 Academy Award-winner for Best Original Screenplay, novelist Sandra Voyter lives with her husband Samuel Maleski, and their 11-year-old visually-impaired son, Daniel. But their relationship is deeply strained, with Daniel often caught in the crossfire. Returning one morning from a walk with his service dog, the boy finds his father dead in the snow below their chalet, seemingly having fallen from the third floor. But did he jump? Or was he pushed? Or did the man just fall? The marriage of Sandra and Samuel slowly unfolds as audiences follow this unsettling psychological thriller across the icy sheets and murky depths that constitute a failing love-relationship. 

Quote:

 “When we started working on this film, it was like a genre film. We have so many thrillers on all the platforms and I wanted to do something different. The original idea was to have a film where there was a lack of visual elements and images, unlike films which depict a trial where there are all sorts of flashbacks and you see the life of the couple - that might have been easier - I could have shown their lives in that manner. But everything is based on absence. The child doesn't see very well and there aren't many images, yet you have this loud, loud music which is a focal point for the film. Whence the idea of placing the spectator in a position like the child or the jurors where there's a lack of facts and evidence - everything is interlinked. This delirium springs from the fact that there's so much that's missing.” -----Justine Triet, Cannes Press Conference, 2023 

Awards: 

+ Cannes Film Festival: Winner of Palme d'Or 

+ Golden Globe Awards: Winner of Best Screenplay and Best Foreign Language Film 

Post-Screening Event: 

+ Moderated Panel Discussion with Pitt LCJS Professors Melissa Ruggiero and Max Cotton moderated by Pitt Film and Visual Media Studies Professor Melissa Lenos