Directed By Women: Anatomy of a Fall (2023)
To see an artist break out is a truly wondrous thing. But there’s a special relish when a filmmaker has been honing their skills to become as assured as Justine Triet, who became only the third woman to win the Palme D’or for her film “Anatomy of a Fall” at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.
With such a paucity of representation for one of the industry’s most prestigious awards, of course Triet’s win must be qualified in that she is a female filmmaker who received the coveted prize from a film festival with its own issues regarding female agency and sexism. Bestowing Triet with this award is likely something of an effort to reconcile (if not rectify) the problem, given that it was presented to her by Jane Fonda, whose legacy of activism is far too wide-ranging to expand on here.
It’s also very much earned, given how well Triet’s delicate yet unblinking gaze dissects the aftermath of Samuel Maleski’s (Samuel Theis) death, especially once his wife Sandra Voyter (Sandra Hüller) is implicated as his possible murderer, to the dismay and further trauma of their visually impaired 11-year-old son Daniel (Milo Machado Graner). Under such circumstances, the focus is never on mere evidence, but also the nature of Samuel and Sandra’s complex, at times turbulent relationship.
