‘Anatomy of a Fall’ and Excruciating Ambiguity
You can create tension and conflict in a story just by refusing certainty.
NEW STANDARD DISCLAIMER: This newsletter aggressively spoils things.
My wife, The Duchess, loves awards shows and red carpets with a passion most people reserve for things like heroin or french fries1. Just about any awards show will catch her interest, but the Big Three (Emmys, Grammys, Oscars) will always find her glued to the old-school network television, judging outfits and snarking about lame speeches2. I am usually dragooned into watching these shows with her, if only to avoid a situation where she is shouting her sick burns about celebrities at the top of her lungs every few minutes3. There are some secrets I want to keep from the neighbors, and The Duchess’ opinions on Taylor Swift are definitely among them.
I find these shows stultifying4 as a rule and occasionally interesting, usually when something goes wrong. My recent exposure to Awards Season did clue me in to the existence of Anatomy of a Fall, a film that’s gotten a lot of dark horse nominations—it’s the sort of film the Academy Awards and Golden Globes assholes like to toss onto the list to prove they’re serious film people instead of industry plants, and that the awards themselves are serious artistic recognition instead of marketing with extra steps.
In other words, it has no chance of winning5. At all. But! It’s an excellent film, and one I really enjoyed. Despite the fact that almost nothing is certain, settled, or explained.
Delicious Ambiguity
Sandra (Sandra Voyter) is a successful author. A German native, she met her husband Samuel (Samuel Theis) while working in London, and moved with him and their son Daniel (Milo Machcado Graner) to Samuel’s hometown in southeastern France after an accident left Daniel visually impaired. While being interviewed by a student, Sandra is annoyed when Samuel begins playing obnoxious music6 very loudly to purposefully disrupt the interview. The interviewer leaves, and Daniel takes their dog, Snoop, for a walk. When he returns, Samuel is lying in a bloody heap at the foot of the house.
That’s about it for solid facts in this movie. Although very realistically rendered, with few fantastical elements, the film purposefully obscures reality and offers few undisputed facts. Sandra is immediately suspected of foul play, but the forensic report cannot state with certainty that Samuel’s death was a homicide or an accident7. Daniel is a key witness, but his impaired vision means he is relying on sound and interpretation to a large degree. Key evidence presented can be interpreted in different ways. Forensic experts hired offer dramatically different—and equally plausible and rational—explanations8.
Unlike a straightforward mystery story, the more information the viewer receives, the less certain everything becomes9. Sandra is bisexual, and had an affair with another woman, explaining Samuel’s passive-aggressive behavior during the interview—the student was an attractive young woman. But Samuel himself was depressive, in therapy, and on medication. There was an incident that could have been a suicide attempt by Samuel, or an accident. Simply put, every piece of evidence in the case has an alternative explanation that is just as believable. And language is a further complication: Sandra never gets to speak her native German, forced to bumble along in French, in which she is passably fluent but not eloquent, and eventually switches to English, which forces the court to rely on translation10. No one can clearly understand each other, and as anyone who has ever tried to pick their way through a conversation with someone who doesn’t share a base language knows, it’s extremely easy to misunderstand what someone’s saying in another language11.
Just Very Good Friends
This ambiguity extends to the personal relationships between characters. Sandra hires an old friend named Vincent (Swann Arlaud) to be her lawyer, and there are hints that there is more between them than friendship or professional necessity. But nothing is ever made clear. There are looks, offhand remarks, an intimate moment at a celebration dinner, but nothing overt12. Daniel changes his testimony several times, adjusting what he claims to have heard or felt when his father died. There are hints he is doing this to protect his mother—but his explanations for his changes make sense, and he seems sincere.
In a key moment in the film, a recording secretly made by Samuel is played13. In it, he and Sandra argue over the balance of their lives—he accuses her of dictating how everything will be and complains he has no time for his own work; she reminds him that she’s living in a strange country where the locals treat her like an unwelcome guest. The words are clear, but the visuals we get are provided via Sandra’s commentary about the recording—it is, again, an interpretation. When the words vanish, replaced by the clear sound of a physical scuffle, we are left with only Sandra’s interpretation, with no way of determining its accuracy14.
In the end, Sandra is acquitted, and the viewer has no idea if this is justice or not. And that, of course, is the point: Why should we know? We don’t ever know in real life, do we? All you can do is weigh the evidence before you and make your best guess. As a writing device, it’s unsettling—we crave certainty, and being denied it brings on complaints. Readers and viewers want to know what really happened, we want to see if we caught the clues, if we saw all the right details. Anatomy of a Fall deliberately denies us that certainty. Just like everything that happens in the real world, you may never know the truth of it. It’s a powerful trick if you can pull it off.
For example, you have no idea if I’m wearing pants right now. And you never will.
NEXT WEEK: Mr. and Mrs. Smith and weaponized incompetence.
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When combined with heroin and french fries even I get kind of excited about them.
Do I have a sweaty, oft-folded acceptance speech for literary awards I’ve never won in my pocket? You’ll find out when I’m dead, son.
Also: Asking me who every third celebrity is. When *I* am your source for pop culture hipness, you have a problem.
Yes, I have been waiting to use that word in a sentence for a very long time, what of it?
Is NO CHANCE OF WINNING. AT ALL. the title of my memoir? If you have to ask, I have lost again.
In the same way science cannot say with certainty whether I’m clever and charming or an incredible asshole. I said with certainty.
If I was ever on trial for murder I look forward to forensic experts being forced to explain to a jury that yes, my resting facial expression just looks like that.
Sort of like when someone tries to explain Skidibi Toilets.
I tried to bumble along in pidgin French in Paris, once, and the derision I experienced from the Parisians is why I plan to someday destroy France completely.
While in Florence I attempted to inquire after the location of the restroom and wound up being chased through the streets by a mob. My language skills are … not good.
Weirdly, this also describes my relationship with my cats.
Secret recordings of me would just be me singing songs to my cats like the one where I change the lyrics to “Christmas Time” from A Charlie Brown Christmas to “Breakfast Time is Here.” Don’t judge me.
If The Duchess ever assaulted me you’d know everything from an audio recording, because it would just be me shouting WHY ARE YOU SLAPPING ME IN THE FACE and STOP TWISTING MY NIPPLES!
I dunno, Jeff. Isn't being chased through the streets by a mob kind of your thing? It could* happen in Hoboken.
*Probably has.