Javi
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Post by Javi on Oct 14, 2023 17:58:40 GMT
(Do we have a thread for this? Feel free to move this if we do.) Justine Triet seems to have a visceral hatred of images. It’s like she watched all those Dogme 95 movies and decided to emulate their ugliness, but without the primitive energy that made those Danish movies amazing to look at. Anatomy has a washed-out MiniDV look, and the editing is atrocious, cutting from one shot to the next at the worst possible moment. Sometimes she will zoom in to a stunned judge’s face in the best Tarantino tradition, but it’s not intended to be funny. What saves the film is Sandra Hüller—and the deliciously awkward position Triet puts her in. Triet surrounds this compelling German actress, who looks like a noble, trustworthy German peasant, with the nastiest, creepiest French people she could find. When Hüller’s husband (a French mediocrity himself) dies, she’s blamed for his death and is put on trial. Hüller’s son, the product of this Franco-German union, looks alarmingly like Damien from The Omen, and is the key witness. Throughout the film, Hüller gets to know the taste of French hostility. Worst of all (though best for us), she refuses to taint herself by speaking French. She speaks only in English. This alone probably makes the French want to burn her at the stake. Hounded and isolated by all this nastiness, Hüller seems purified, a MiniDV Dreyer witch. Triet lashed out on social media when France picked A Taste of Honey as its Oscar submission. Could she honestly have been shocked at the news? If there’s something French artists have in common it’s their sacrosanct devotion to the French language. Triet has violated this pact and has made a movie set in France where the only likable character is defiantly non-French. And she complains that they passed her over for the “mediocre” Honey. Triet’s film would be perfectly mediocre itself if not for its peculiar dramatic predicament. And even then, a key element of this predicament is unconvincing. Why have Sandra Hüller speak English at all? Why not her native German, which would also insult French sensibilities? Is it to give Hüller a bigger shot at the Oscars? Hüller is an amazing actress. (Her astonishing debut performance in Requiem is probably still her best). At 45, she has the luminous quality of a young Cate Blanchett, talent and spontaneity totally unified (there are no affectations). She’s beautifully transparent, which works against the film because you never really doubt her innocence. You root for her to plant her German flag and come out on top. And yet she probably isn’t winning any Oscars. She’s still too European, too “complex”, both likable and unlikable. She’s undefined in a way critics love but awards shows hate. She takes pride in being more of a writer than her dead husband, and complains about living in a “shithole”, while the camera shows the shithole in the background… the French Alps.The movie is much ado about nothing ( essentially, it’s a melodrama about a kid saving his mom ), but Triet’s amazing self-hatred makes it very entertaining. The phoniness of the English-language scenes and the awful reenactments (flashbacks) have you glued to the screen. Triet and Hüller give us an English-speaking, German-born Joan of Arc, with France as the devil. |
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Post by Martin Stett on Oct 15, 2023 20:33:16 GMT
This review was amazing and makes me want to see the film even more  |
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Post by stephen on Nov 7, 2023 2:42:01 GMT
Sandra Hüller gives a powerful performance that was very reminiscent of Blanchett's Lydia Tar at times (seriously, can we get a movie where they play sisters?), but I think Milo Machado-Graner stole the show. As for the film, I really liked it but Triet keeps things at such a distance that I felt far too removed for me to have any real vested interest in a verdict. Which I imagine is the point, but I am not sure how I feel about it.
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Post by mikediastavrone96 on Nov 7, 2023 4:42:57 GMT
Copying what I said in the "Last movie you saw thread" with a long spoiler addition. Found the marital conflict and family dynamic super fascinating, the courtroom stuff much less so. Wish the film didn't unsuccessfully try to be about the ambiguity of the case (I found it so aggressively obvious well before the 3rd act all but secures it*) and instead was about the experience of the characters having their lives upended and torn apart by the death and subsequent trial. Still, always watchable and compellingly acted and reaches for greatness when the marital conflict is center stage. Sandra Hüller is a deserving contender for Best Actress, but honestly the best acting in the whole film is done by the dog who's an extremely good boy. * The movie never once convincingly puts Sandra's innocence in doubt. Idk if the film is meant to be a satire or a melodramatic exaggeration of the French legal system, but the prosecution is absurd and half of their "evidence" wouldn't be admissible in America. The forensic evidence was a wash between the prosecution and defense, the psychiatrist was the biggest fucking quack I've seen depicted on screen in years (when he said he can tell if his clients are lying, I laughed my ass off), and the attempt to ascribe motive through her novels was the kind of reach that only Michael Jordan in Space Jam could get to. That the 3rd act then became all about how the kid "saves" his mom with his last-minute testimony just makes it ring even phonier - any legitimate court would've dismissed this case long ago. Hell, any prosecutor with this file on their desk would've immediately thrown it in the trash. |
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Post by Pittsnogle_Goggins on Nov 7, 2023 14:19:50 GMT
Copying what I said in the "Last movie you saw thread" with a long spoiler addition. Found the marital conflict and family dynamic super fascinating, the courtroom stuff much less so. Wish the film didn't unsuccessfully try to be about the ambiguity of the case (I found it so aggressively obvious well before the 3rd act all but secures it*) and instead was about the experience of the characters having their lives upended and torn apart by the death and subsequent trial. Still, always watchable and compellingly acted and reaches for greatness when the marital conflict is center stage. Sandra Hüller is a deserving contender for Best Actress, but honestly the best acting in the whole film is done by the dog who's an extremely good boy. * The movie never once convincingly puts Sandra's innocence in doubt. Idk if the film is meant to be a satire or a melodramatic exaggeration of the French legal system, but the prosecution is absurd and half of their "evidence" wouldn't be admissible in America. The forensic evidence was a wash between the prosecution and defense, the psychiatrist was the biggest fucking quack I've seen depicted on screen in years (when he said he can tell if his clients are lying, I laughed my ass off), and the attempt to ascribe motive through her novels was the kind of reach that only Michael Jordan in Space Jam could get to. That the 3rd act then became all about how the kid "saves" his mom with his last-minute testimony just makes it ring even phonier - any legitimate court would've dismissed this case long ago. Hell, any prosecutor with this file on their desk would've immediately thrown it in the trash. And yet I've read a ton of takes thinking she did it. I don't thing she did but obviously there's still enough ambiguity for some audience. |
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Post by stephen on Nov 7, 2023 14:28:06 GMT
Copying what I said in the "Last movie you saw thread" with a long spoiler addition. Found the marital conflict and family dynamic super fascinating, the courtroom stuff much less so. Wish the film didn't unsuccessfully try to be about the ambiguity of the case (I found it so aggressively obvious well before the 3rd act all but secures it*) and instead was about the experience of the characters having their lives upended and torn apart by the death and subsequent trial. Still, always watchable and compellingly acted and reaches for greatness when the marital conflict is center stage. Sandra Hüller is a deserving contender for Best Actress, but honestly the best acting in the whole film is done by the dog who's an extremely good boy. * The movie never once convincingly puts Sandra's innocence in doubt. Idk if the film is meant to be a satire or a melodramatic exaggeration of the French legal system, but the prosecution is absurd and half of their "evidence" wouldn't be admissible in America. The forensic evidence was a wash between the prosecution and defense, the psychiatrist was the biggest fucking quack I've seen depicted on screen in years (when he said he can tell if his clients are lying, I laughed my ass off), and the attempt to ascribe motive through her novels was the kind of reach that only Michael Jordan in Space Jam could get to. That the 3rd act then became all about how the kid "saves" his mom with his last-minute testimony just makes it ring even phonier - any legitimate court would've dismissed this case long ago. Hell, any prosecutor with this file on their desk would've immediately thrown it in the trash. And yet I've read a ton of takes thinking she did it. I don't thing she did but obviously there's still enough ambiguity for some audience. Yeah, I came away thinking that it was very plausible, probably even likely that she did do it, but that wasn't the point of the movie. The point was the effect the whole mess had on Daniel, and constantly racking his memories for any excuse, anything that would put a swift resolution to the case that wouldn't upend his life permanently. |
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Post by mikediastavrone96 on Nov 7, 2023 15:27:22 GMT
Copying what I said in the "Last movie you saw thread" with a long spoiler addition. Found the marital conflict and family dynamic super fascinating, the courtroom stuff much less so. Wish the film didn't unsuccessfully try to be about the ambiguity of the case (I found it so aggressively obvious well before the 3rd act all but secures it*) and instead was about the experience of the characters having their lives upended and torn apart by the death and subsequent trial. Still, always watchable and compellingly acted and reaches for greatness when the marital conflict is center stage. Sandra Hüller is a deserving contender for Best Actress, but honestly the best acting in the whole film is done by the dog who's an extremely good boy. * The movie never once convincingly puts Sandra's innocence in doubt. Idk if the film is meant to be a satire or a melodramatic exaggeration of the French legal system, but the prosecution is absurd and half of their "evidence" wouldn't be admissible in America. The forensic evidence was a wash between the prosecution and defense, the psychiatrist was the biggest fucking quack I've seen depicted on screen in years (when he said he can tell if his clients are lying, I laughed my ass off), and the attempt to ascribe motive through her novels was the kind of reach that only Michael Jordan in Space Jam could get to. That the 3rd act then became all about how the kid "saves" his mom with his last-minute testimony just makes it ring even phonier - any legitimate court would've dismissed this case long ago. Hell, any prosecutor with this file on their desk would've immediately thrown it in the trash. And yet I've read a ton of takes thinking she did it. I don't thing she did but obviously there's still enough ambiguity for some audience. The website didshedoit.com they had up before the movie shows 2/3rds think she didn't do it, a pretty overwhelming majority. And I mean, sure, there are people that are going to think anything. A lot of people misread American Psycho as all being in his head. People watch Fight Club and think Tyler Durden is aspirational. I'm not speaking to someone else's perception of the film, only my own and in my estimation the movie never once convinces that she could have possibly done it even though wide stretches of it are about debating that exact point. |
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Post by stephen on Nov 7, 2023 15:36:15 GMT
And yet I've read a ton of takes thinking she did it. I don't thing she did but obviously there's still enough ambiguity for some audience. The website didshedoit.com they had up before the movie shows 2/3rds think she didn't do it, a pretty overwhelming majority. And I mean, sure, there are people that are going to think anything. A lot of people misread American Psycho as all being in his head. People watch Fight Club and think Tyler Durden is aspirational. I'm not speaking to someone else's perception of the film, only my own and in my estimation the movie never once convinces that she could have possibly done it even though wide stretches of it are about debating that exact point. To be fair, I think Anatomy of a Fall does leave Sandra at somewhat of an advantage because we never see Samuel in life as anything other than an (unseen) annoyance, and the film makes a point to have the prosecutor come off to be such a probing dickhead that we immediately feel some sympathy for her. The film also has these random bombshells come out that seem somewhat ludicrous in their delivery ("She's bisexual!") that just serve to make us feel like this woman is being railroaded. I think it is certainly designed to be ambiguous because she never confesses and we never see the act, and the whole point of the film is to fill Daniel with doubt because his memories are constantly being called into question so that he starts doubting everything about his parents' relationship and his life in general. Whether you feel it achieved that, or earned that ambiguity is another matter. |
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Post by mikediastavrone96 on Nov 7, 2023 16:08:17 GMT
The website didshedoit.com they had up before the movie shows 2/3rds think she didn't do it, a pretty overwhelming majority. And I mean, sure, there are people that are going to think anything. A lot of people misread American Psycho as all being in his head. People watch Fight Club and think Tyler Durden is aspirational. I'm not speaking to someone else's perception of the film, only my own and in my estimation the movie never once convinces that she could have possibly done it even though wide stretches of it are about debating that exact point. To be fair, I think Anatomy of a Fall does leave Sandra at somewhat of an advantage because we never see Samuel in life as anything other than an (unseen) annoyance, and the film makes a point to have the prosecutor come off to be such a probing dickhead that we immediately feel some sympathy for her. The film also has these random bombshells come out that seem somewhat ludicrous in their delivery ("She's bisexual!") that just serve to make us feel like this woman is being railroaded.
I think it is certainly designed to be ambiguous because she never confesses and we never see the act, and the whole point of the film is to fill Daniel with doubt because his memories are constantly being called into question so that he starts doubting everything about his parents' relationship and his life in general. Whether you feel it achieved that, or earned that ambiguity is another matter. Yeah, I just think none of the attempts at ambiguity really work. Triet either needed to build a stronger case for the prosecution - make her more of the aggressor in the fight, have her immediately setting plans to flee the country after her husband's death, make the forensics more damning, have the lawyer actually seem competent, something - or focus more on what the case is doing to the mother and son than the actual courtroom proceedings. |
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Nov 10, 2023 6:11:23 GMT
Copying what I said in the "Last movie you saw thread" with a long spoiler addition. Found the marital conflict and family dynamic super fascinating, the courtroom stuff much less so. Wish the film didn't unsuccessfully try to be about the ambiguity of the case (I found it so aggressively obvious well before the 3rd act all but secures it*) and instead was about the experience of the characters having their lives upended and torn apart by the death and subsequent trial. Still, always watchable and compellingly acted and reaches for greatness when the marital conflict is center stage. Sandra Hüller is a deserving contender for Best Actress, but honestly the best acting in the whole film is done by the dog who's an extremely good boy. * The movie never once convincingly puts Sandra's innocence in doubt. Idk if the film is meant to be a satire or a melodramatic exaggeration of the French legal system, but the prosecution is absurd and half of their "evidence" wouldn't be admissible in America. The forensic evidence was a wash between the prosecution and defense, the psychiatrist was the biggest fucking quack I've seen depicted on screen in years (when he said he can tell if his clients are lying, I laughed my ass off), and the attempt to ascribe motive through her novels was the kind of reach that only Michael Jordan in Space Jam could get to. That the 3rd act then became all about how the kid "saves" his mom with his last-minute testimony just makes it ring even phonier - any legitimate court would've dismissed this case long ago. Hell, any prosecutor with this file on their desk would've immediately thrown it in the trash. I maybe shouldn’t have opened this thread a few days ago without having seen the film yet, but after reading this specific comment, I went into the film expecting to detect early on what might be obvious about the case, and I actually came to a different conclusion than you (during the film’s first act at least) based on certain details that perhaps led me astray: In the opening scene, Sandra and the interviewer discuss her approach to writing, and there’s a line of dialogue about how she starts from something real first and then “spins fiction from truth” (or something to that effect). So it initially felt to me like the film was using her occupation and specific methodology as a way of not only thematizing the idea of blurring truth and fiction, but also setting up her character as a potentially unreliable “storyteller.” Then again, looking back now, I realize that could also have been purposeful misdirection on Triet’s part.
Another detail that (to me) suggested her guilt early on was the recurring motif of Daniel playing the piano. What struck me about it was the way his performance is obviously unrefined, full of little mistakes and imperfections... sort of like how Sandra’s defense has holes and is imperfect, but can be refined through “rehearsal” to the point where she can “perform” it convincingly. What especially stuck out to me was the scene where Sandra and Daniel play together at the piano, which seemed at first to suggest his complicity in protecting her (is he lying to himself, making himself believe certain things, changing his memories?), and then he walks away from his mother at the piano as if symbolically conflicted about their “cooperation.”
I agree though that the prosecution was absurd, and that aspect of the film doesn’t really make you doubt her innocence if you already believed she was at the outset.
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forksforest
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Quit your shit-spitting
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Post by forksforest on Nov 15, 2023 3:46:05 GMT
I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t what I was expecting from the film (I.e more plot based drama lol). It felt like such a clinical take on a moral mystery that it was interesting but a little detached from the subject? I loved Huller, and she alone imo carried the film… I don’t think it would have been as gripping if she wasn’t able to capture all of the nuances to the character’s complex inner life - as a mom, as a wife, as a writer, as a victim/potential perpetrator etc.
It’s not a movie that leaves me thinking much beyond the runtime, which again just cements how detached I otherwise felt towards the subject matter.
I echo the other thoughts about how preposterous the actual trial felt, it was 99% based on hearsay. But Huller (and Machado-Graner) kept the movie otherwise grounded, as the emotional center. I kept expecting there to be a brief flashback towards the end… to close out the mystery, but alas… I guess that wasn’t the point.
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Post by Billy_Costigan on Nov 27, 2023 18:17:17 GMT
Good film but could have been great. It's 2 and a half hours but felt longer than Oppenheimer and Killers of the Flower Moon. Huller is nomination worthy though.
The court room scenes are way too long, especially after it becomes clear... there's no real evidence. I kept viewing it from a US judicial point of view and there's no way they could prove murder "beyond a reasonable doubt" so I thought the whole case was silly. It was all speculation. The ending may have hit harder if it turned out she did do it or if there was more evidence to think she did |
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Post by stabcaesar on Dec 24, 2023 15:21:54 GMT
I think a lot of the criticisms about the realism are based on the US legal system. Legal systems in other countries are completely different. Anyway Hüller and the kid are majestic in this film, which is pretty much all that matters as this film is all about them. Really hope she kicks Mulligan out come nomination day. Btw I don't think Sandra killed him at all and I don't think Samuel committed suicide either. He fell. That's by far the most logical explanation. The fact that the lawyer wrote that possiblity off because "no one would believe it" is the irony of it. |
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Jan 12, 2024 2:39:40 GMT
wow what a film. I need to sit with it for awhile but the more I think about it the more I love it. I think it earns its ambiguity and it was clear to me that Daniel's testimony in the end was questionable and likely in part fabricated, and that he was "choosing" his truth as Marge encouraged in a previous scene (notice the way Samuel's words in Daniel's "memory" conspicuously match exactly -- this is just another narrative).
As for Sandra's guilt, it's patently clear from the argument scene that the story as framed around her legal defense has made her appear more sympathetic and less suspect than she actually is, and that Triet has been intentionally obscuring aspects of Sandra's character. It can both be true that prosecutions favor sexist narratives to win arguments (as is often the case in the US legal system too) and that she's capable of killing. The sharp cut between the flashback and the audio playing in court is brutally effective and chilling, but the courtroom editing heightens ambiguity by giving the viewer glimpses of conflicting narratives obscured by false memory and conjecture so who's to say the flashback was even a flashback and not just the argument as conceived by someone (maybe Daniel) hearing the damning audio for the first time. Note how when Sandra coolly explains elements of the audio Triet opts to not confirm Sandra's explanations. The question of Sandra's material guilt is arguably secondary anyways, because what's so much more interesting is that Sandra could have killed Samuel and that she's glad he's dead.
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avnermoriarti
Badass
Friends say I’ve changed. They’re right.
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Post by avnermoriarti on Jan 26, 2024 8:41:03 GMT
The way Sandra Hüller inhabits that house she calls a shithole is a thing of beauty, I could watch her hours just walking through it, sleeping, crying, smoking... She's the atmosphere of the movie and one of its two great attributes (well actually three, Messi, so crucial to the whole thing). I was surprised by how straightforward this is, especially considering how in her previous film (Sibyl) Triet was so into all the layers ficition and reality can bring to the table and she has fun with that. That's the movie to watch to have a nice time arranging the different scenarios. Here not so much as her point of view is already compromised from the moment the crime happens, so every time the movie tried to suggest an ambiguity that wasn't there deflated that aspect even more. And there's something trite in the way it puts on the table the whole marriage crisis and the sexism that she faces on, it's done in such a redundant way that made me appreciate Barbie's speech more. The secret weapon though is the kid, that's the one aspect that kept my interest throughout, he's the quiet viewer that has the picture all for himself and he's never compromised by the movie in the way Huller is, every action he takes is charged with ambiguity. He knows the weapon he has on his hands.
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Post by Pavan on Feb 2, 2024 14:27:56 GMT
A little too long and contrived for my liking but Huller's top-notch performance and the last 15 odd min and the way it ended really impressed me.
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Post by Martin Stett on Feb 21, 2024 21:26:04 GMT
Pretty standard stuff. Huller is good, and I liked the marriage dynamics. Trial was stupid. Dry but decent enough as a troubled marriage drama.
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Post by sterlingarcher86 on Mar 4, 2024 4:36:08 GMT
So I got to ask. How they fuck did they get the dog to do that??? Did they drug a dog for real? I was so baffled I missed the whole next scene basically. I came to wondering what the kid was crying about.
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Post by mhynson27 on Mar 4, 2024 13:46:57 GMT
So I got to ask. How they fuck did they get the dog to do that??? Did they drug a dog for real? I was so baffled I missed the whole next scene basically. I came to wondering what the kid was crying about. Just God given talent, the likes of which we've never seen. |
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Post by Pittsnogle_Goggins on Mar 4, 2024 14:56:24 GMT
So I got to ask. How they fuck did they get the dog to do that??? Did they drug a dog for real? I was so baffled I missed the whole next scene basically. I came to wondering what the kid was crying about. The dog has re-enacted that scene a couple times, it’s genuinely crazy |
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Post by sterlingarcher86 on Mar 4, 2024 17:10:59 GMT
So I got to ask. How they fuck did they get the dog to do that??? Did they drug a dog for real? I was so baffled I missed the whole next scene basically. I came to wondering what the kid was crying about. The dog has re-enacted that scene a couple times, it’s genuinely crazy I’m even more confused now. Like that is a crazy specific thing for that dog to do. I’ve seen less convincing humans. |
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Post by mhynson27 on Mar 4, 2024 22:14:46 GMT
Messi really is the GOAT
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Post by PromNightCarrie on Mar 6, 2024 11:31:46 GMT
Messi is the Gary Oldman of dogs.
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Post by stephen on Mar 6, 2024 13:49:10 GMT
An awful lot of Uggie erasure in this thread.
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rhodoraonline
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Your Generosity Hides Something Dirtier and Meaner
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Post by rhodoraonline on Mar 8, 2024 18:59:13 GMT
Finally watched it last night and loved it. The movie is less about the actual ambiguity (or rather lack of evidence of the murder), and more about how easy it is to pile it up against the woman just because she COULD HAVE done it, being the only one in the house. Both the husband's arguments and the prosecutor's arguments against her perfectly mirror each other in pettiness and thin veiling of resentment against her personal power and the dynamism of her career. The people who think this wouldn't have even been a case in the US legal system are dismissing all the circumstantial and skeptical ways many innocent people in the US are arrested, tried, sentenced, and even put on death row sometimes, only for the real guilty person to be finally revealed decades later (or never). Justice always tends to side with Power. And this was about both a husband and a justice system begrudging their having no real ground against this woman other than their petty arguments. It doesn't matter to the system if it's gonna wreck someone's life or make the life of a blind kid even more messed up. The reality show aspect of the French legal system on display was the most fun part to me. Messi was awesome, but ultimately far too little screentime. He should TOTALLY be invited to the Oscars. This would have easily won the Foreign category if the French's nominating system hadn't been so petty |
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