Anatomy of a Fall

God, I am so pissed!! The worst cinema experience of this year. I accidentally stepped in shit when I preferred this to DiCaprio, as I love courtroom movies (what could possibly go wrong?), but to get my Anatomy and Dissection without anesthetics! I really didn't expect it. Anatomy of a Fall is one of those movies that when it ends, half the theater screams with joy FINALLY!!! and goes to buy champagne and get really drunk that this shit is finally over, because I couldn’t believe it anymore! (I thought it was funny to look around the hall half way through the film and realise that half the people were actually asleep). It terms of craftsmanship, it's a cheap film that looks like it was made by a law student (terrible cinematography, ugly visuals, no film look), it has a crazy 150 miinute running time with a painfully slow pace (I've really never seen a worse courtroom film in my life). Moreover, the whole film evoked for me the Michael Peterson case (The Staircase), but that was a level above in every way. The execution for me is almost repulsive and the trial is absolutely bland (the best performance here is by a dog!), and the biggest kick in the balls comes at the very end where you get no explanation. A murder mystery without revelation, that's what I call a bold move, which makes me wonder for what purpose such a film was made in the first place? I want to turn back time, I want to turn back money, I want to turn back the mood. I'm going to go and watch the French film Guilty immediately to fix my mood (which coincidentally has an identical 85%, but the qualities are completely different). This really sounds like a bad April Fool's joke. I was going crazy with boredom in the cinema like I haven't in a long time. For my part, this is the prototypical boring arthouse drama that I heartily hate. Had I played the movie at home, I would have thrown the TV out the window in a huff! Terrible. 2/10. (23/10/2023)

Ordinary, yet chilling. Solid filmmaking but still close to reality. A film that benefits most of all from its "ordinariness" and the fact that it could easily happen, which makes it all the more intense and harrowing. It is Sandra Hüller's brilliant performance and a terrific one-woman show that deserves the most credit for the authenticity of the experience, which rightly earned the film the Palme d'Or. The film goes by like water, for the whole two hours we are practically only in the courtroom and all the scene there are intense. The prosecuting lawyer is a sleazy, pushy thug, the court evidence is nail-biting, the mother-son tension gradually escalates, and the further the plot gets, the more uncertain it makes you and your own theories about the truth. Most of all, I like the impeccable work with the presentation of evidence, the element of the viewer's own interpretation and the conclusion, which each viewer can interpret in his or her own way and which more or less just outlines "what could have happened", but leaves the final picture up to each of us. It's good to see, after a long time, a work that doesn't need excessive CGI and a million-dollar budget to be perfect, but makes do with a clear creative vision and authentic acting. Strong. (10/10/2023)

Justine Triet delivers a superbly written and filmed study of family ties at a moment of the greatest test of trust, but to be honest, it passed me by in a big way. This long, largely procedural drama is unfortunately as cold as the snout of the dog starring in it, and consequently as cold as the mountain setting in which it takes place. It was a creative choice, of course, but all those pivotal dramatic moments that I had to wait a long time for didn't work and didn't interest me at all. Though I somewhat enjoyed the ambiguity of some of the messages, I am still far from enthusiastic as a viewer. [KVIFF 2023] (26/07/2023)

Flawless, pure dramatic form with the magnetic Sandra Hüller and a fantastic child actor. The film’s strength flows from the way it takes the central detective mystery from the field of a procedural crime movies to that of a character study with the child protagonist at the center. The post-Cannes hype was enormous, though I had mild reservations about Anatomy of a Fall due to the fact that it is in some respects too cold and professorial. (06/07/2023)

This is your quintessential festival film. A seemingly ordinary plot is shot in a supposedly realistic and inventive way. However, it ends up being incredibly cold, grim, and difficult to engage with. While I understand the hype — having seen a few films like this before — it just didn’t do it for me. 150 minutes of pure cinematic coldness. (05/02/2024)