Anatomy of a Fall: How the 2023 Palme d’Or was born?

What is it about? Sandra, Samuel and their 11-year-old visually impaired son, Daniel, have been living in the mountains for a year, away from it all. One day Samuel was found dead at the foot of their house. The investigation into the suspicious death was started. Sandra will soon be charged, despite the suspicion: suicide or murder? A year later, Daniel attends his mother’s trial, the true autopsy of the couple.

Defeat a couple

With Anatomy of the Fall, Justin Triet wanted to make a film that focused on the couple’s defeat. The idea was for the director to technically tell the fall of the body and turn it into an image of the reversal of the love story: “This couple has a son who discovers his parents’ story in a trial — a trial that methodically destroys their relationship — and the boy goes from a childhood stage of absolute trust in his mother to suspicion.”

“And the film revisits this passage. In my previous films there were children but they didn’t have a say, they were there but we didn’t have their opinion. It was as if the moment had come. Integrate the child’s gaze into the story, balance it with the gaze of Sandra, the central character. The film gradually became like a long interrogation : From Home to Court is just “a sequence of scenes where the characters are interrogated. .

“I wanted to return to more realism, almost in a documentary sense, written or formal. But it was to go further in terms of the complexity of what the film tells us as much as in the emotions. It can create. Everything is aimed at greater stripping: there is no additional music, the film is more raw , more bare than my previous one.Trusts Justin Triet.

Reunion with Sandra Huler

Justin Triet wrote Anatomy of a Fall for Sandra Huler. The filmmaker wanted to work with the actress again after Sibyl: “I wrote for him, he knew that, that was one of the things that encouraged me in the first place. This free woman who is finally valued for her sexuality, for her work, for her motherhood: I thought it would bring a complexity, an innocence to the character, to completely remove the notion of a “message.” . And then we actually met on set.”

Record Score 4.4 out of 5: It’s on the podium for the best movies of 2023!

Criminal lawyer as a consultant

Justin Triet co-wrote the film with Arthur Harari. The script is not adapted from a real event, but the director wanted everything to be as authentic as possible. Thus, the screenwriters turned to criminal lawyer Vincent Courcelle-Labrousse, who they consulted about the technical aspects of the film, but also about the French representation of the audience:

“What surprised us was the somewhat messy side of the proceedings in France, as opposed to the United States, where the speech is tougher. It’s much more spectacular. The idea of ​​attending to continuous blocks of the audience took hold.”

“I spent time with my editor, Laurent Seneschal, I asked him to slow down the pace, make the shots imperfect, blurry, a little shaky. I didn’t want a comfortable, very clean film.”Justin Triet recalls.

Finding Daniel

Interpreting the baby Daniel was difficult. Justin Triet and his “acting co-worker” Cynthia Ara showed visually impaired children for the first time in four months. Then, when they couldn’t find it, sighted children were cast for another three months before falling for Milo: “It was Gilles Gagewho found him. He was instantly impressive as if he wasn’t acting.”

“He studied the piano intensively, and then together with Cynthia we looked for the level of vision loss with the help of people who specialize in vision loss. We chose a visual impairment as mild as possible without high myopia. Peripheral vision loss is a child with exceptional intellectual and emotional abilities, with a kind of melancholic vibe.”

Anatomy of a Fall: What started the Palme d’Or at the French box office?

Antoine Reynaerts VS Swan Arlo

Antoine Reinarts plays the role of General Advocate. Justin Triet chose it for modernity, giving it character: “He brings something different to the film, he brings in the modern world and it breaks up the dusty solemnity of the trial… He plays a villain in a way, but a very seductive, sly, sly villain. He speaks for the dead. and must bring back the latter, whom we scarcely see, as a lover, to make us understand, as a jury, that this man deserves to be defended. Antoine brings a dimension to the court arena, the civilized violence of the prosecution. “

In the place of the defendant’s lawyer, Svan Arlod plays a rather fragile and defensive character: “I didn’t want a cockfight between them. Vincent is not a bar virtuoso, he’s good, but not idealized. Swann brings a subtlety to the game, fear, because he knows his client. I found it interesting that he somehow is. Samuel’s double, that the two Like, we understand that Sandra and him met years ago and that there is something between them that hasn’t completely died down.the film director notes.