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Anatomie d’une chute (2023)

Palme D'Or winner and probable Foreign Language Film of the Year 2023/24, catch this while you can. At first, a slow-paced but engrossing dissection of a troubled marriage, then a death in unexplained circumstances, all leading to a riveting courtroom drama. The French legal system - inquisitorial - laid bare like never before! Did you know that in France, if a defendant is not French then real time translation is available to ensure everyone from defendant through to judge, jury and counsel can hear proceedings in their language of choice via a headset? Positively innovative & refreshing.

Anyway, Sandra (Sandra Hullier) is a German national and her French husband Samuel (Samuel Theis) are writers, both intellectual, living with their young visually impaired son Daniel in a chalet high up in the picturesque French Alps near Grenoble. Samuel, poor chap, flits into and out of bouts of depression accentuated by remorse over missed opportunities earlier in life and now by writers' block, Sandra is taking lovers (of both sexes).

One day, Samuel is found dead at the bottom of the chalet with a nasty head wound. Did he fall from an upstairs window, hitting his head on a bunker at the bottom of the chalet or was this something more sinister? Police are dissatisfied with Sandra's explanations and she ends up in the dock. She has an unfortunate tendency not to tell the whole truth which, of course, compromises her. The court must decide was this some form of culpable homicide (even murder), was it suicide or just plain accident?

For the final third of the film we're in court. Terrific courtroom scenes with twists and turns keeping you guessing to the end. Vincent (Swann Arlaud) leads Sandra's defence (he may even be a former lover) and, simply towering above proceedings, L'Avocat General Antoine Reinartz prosecutes with a condescending sneer "they pay me because I'm so good at uncovering the truth".

Director Justine Triet runs a tight ship throughout, her sumptuous outdoors cinematography - with the French Alps in all their splendour - reminds of Anthony Mann in the 1950s