The Cannes Palme d'Or, a trial of intimacy

In the movie, after the husband falls to his death, the court opens a trial of murder or suicide, and also unveils the analysis of family relationships. (Data map/Figure)

In a chalet under the French Alps, an interview is underway. The female writer seems to be good at avoiding questions, and at one point she became the questioner. The young reporter sitting across from her seemed a little overwhelmed, so he had to follow her wishes and start chatting.

Suddenly, the sound of music played by the writer's husband was heard upstairs, which was deafening, and his dissatisfaction was evident. The interview was terminated and the female journalist left. Shortly after she left, the writer's husband was found dead by their son in the snow outside the cabin.

The question is, who is the murderer? According to the previous suspense narrative strategy, the plot will always go through multiple reversals before the truth will come out. The film "Anatomy of a Falling Death", which just won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023, offers another solution, and director Justin Trier doesn't seem to care if the plot is reversed, and it doesn't even matter who the murderer is. Stripped of suspense, Trier is more interested in how people use their own narratives to complete the dissection of a death.

The film cleverly sets up the courtroom session, so that the intimacy that should be in the private sphere is laid out in front of everyone's eyes. One party wants to prove the murder, and the other party wants to prove his innocence by proving that his husband committed suicide, and both parties are trying to use their own narratives to get closer to the truth, and all clues may become evidence in court.

As a novelist, Sandler Voight's writing became the object of prosecution scrutiny, and "her life was in the book, especially her relationships." The novel's dislike for her husband, the possibility of her husband's death, and the imagination of how to kill are all understood as a reflection of the actual motive for killing. Under this scrutiny, the narratives in the book are no longer complete, they are cut into fragments, even sentences, and then connected with reality in the mind with human will, and the narrative is reconstructed.

One of the key pieces of evidence in the film is also the recording of her husband Samuel before his death. Samuel is a former teacher and also enjoys writing. Due to Samuel's part-responsibility for his son Daniel's permanent vision impairment, he spends a lot of his time with various family matters and his company out of guilt. He seems uncomplaining and willing, but the recording shows a different side of this family intimacy.

In the recording, Samuel asks his wife to reconsider the division of labor in the family, believing that he has sacrificed too much personal time for family matters and that he wants more time to write. After listening to this, Sandler mocked him indifferently, the writer would not stop writing because he had children and housework, no one forced him, and he did not owe him anything. The director seems to be deliberately reversing the genders, and Samuel is actually experiencing the situation of many women in marriage in reality, helpless and struggling.

Next, the argument between the two in the recording becomes more and more intense. Sandler's bisexual identity, infidelity and other intimate information were revealed one by one in Samuel's mouth and fell into the ears of everyone in the trial. In the prosecution's view, these were the motives and reasons for the imbalance in the relationship between husband and wife and the murder of her husband by the wife. Here, recordings that were originally only recorded in a certain dimension of human relations are also used to refer to the whole picture, helping the prosecution to complete the deduction and reconstruction of the truth.

Sandler tried to deny this narrative that has been reconstructed by telling Samuel's psychiatrist, one of the witnesses, that "what you're talking about is only a small part of the whole situation, and a couple is like a mess..."

Paradoxically, Sandler himself is also consciously or unconsciously narrating the truth, and her husband's unusual behavior of taking medicine six months before his death, seeing a psychiatrist, and being depressed in writing have all become reasons for her to reconstruct his suicide in the course of her defense.

Even if the fragments of evidence presented by the prosecution and defense are real, perhaps no one dares to confirm that the suicide or homicide stories reconstructed from these fragments are the truth itself. As director Justin Trier said, "It's very modern, and that's how we live today." In the trial, all sorts of things change and are given extra weight, giving rise to new fictions. ” 

The evidence was presented not only in front of the prosecution and defense, but also in front of his son Daniel, who began to re-examine his parents. At first, he believed his mother, but as the two sides recounted the trial, his attitude gradually became wavering, and the image of his mother hitting his father hard and pushing him downstairs even appeared in his mind.

On the other hand, he also tried to give the dog medicine to verify his mother's claim that his father had taken medicine and vomited, and he also remembered the conversation his father had with him when he took the dog to the doctor, which he thought showed his father's suicidal tendencies. From the various swings to his selection of factual fragments after scrutiny, Daniel finally constructs his own version of the narrative of the truth in his mind.

Stills from "The Anatomy of Death by Falling from a Building" (also translated as "The Falling Judgment"). (Data map/Figure)

Director Justin Trier once mentioned in an interview, "These trials are a nightmare for people because you have been deprived of your own life. Everyone is creating a kind of fictional story and is not really trying to reach the truth. I'm very fascinated by the truth and trying to find the truth through the story, and I find it very interesting. ”

Obviously, the director also wants to pull the audience into the search for truth and the construction of the narrative. Under the shell of suspense, we, as viewers, have naturally been thinking about who the murderer is since Samuel fell from the building. In the confrontation between the prosecution and defense, whenever they list new evidence, make new statements, and justify them, we, like Daniel, can't help but turn our scrutinizing eyes to Samuel and Sandler, trying to find our own narrative from the factual evidence provided by both sides and their narratives, and deduce the truth of death.

But outside the film, we are more passive, and all narratives are always based on the interpretation of the truth by the characters in the film, which also means that our perception of the truth is more uncertain.

The film ends with Sandler being found not guilty. If there is an element of fiction on both sides, why can one narrative prevail over the other? Perhaps it was the emotional power of Daniel's monologue about his father that moved the judge and helped his mother win. After Sandler came home, Daniel hugged and kissed her. In the silence of the room, a rare warmth lingered.

Is that the truth? Not really. In previous narratives, the director has succeeded in planting the seeds of doubt in the hearts of the audience, and even if Sandler is found not guilty, people's hesitation and uncertainty about the truth have not disappeared.

Actress Sandra Wheeler once asked the director about the script whether her role was guilty or innocent, and Terrier told her, "I don't know, but I want you to act as if she's innocent."

"She may be responsible but not guilty, or she may be guilty but not responsible. She can be responsible for forcing him to commit suicide without the sin of killing him, or she can kill him when she doesn't want to kill him – either impulsively or in a way we can try to imagine. The truth exists, but it is too complex to grasp here. Director Justin Trier said in an interview.

But in retrospect, it may no longer matter what the truth is. Fiction is a human talent, and as long as you are willing, you can construct your own narrative with the help of a few keywords. However, if the relationship between people is examined and reconstructed like this death, then in fact, no relationship can withstand such rigorous and detailed analysis.

Southern Weekly reporter Weng Rongrong

Editor-in-charge: Li Muyan