Re: Anatomy of a Fall reviews
Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2023 8:42 pm
Apparently I'm the outlier on this -- not in the world at large, but here -- because I think this is a terrific film. If it's a Law & Order episode, it's one written by peak Bergman. This, despite the outward appearance of a courtroom procedural, isn't about a legal outcome (the actual verdict is a virtual throwaway); it's about the dissection of a marriage and, relatedly, a family. And about how differences in perspective alter what a set of facts means. I find this a plenty big subject for a film, and the 2 1/2 hours sailed by for me (in fact, when the end came, I was surprised it had come so quickly).
Back before he went to the dark side, Alan Dershowitz once observed that juries need to understand their role is not to solve the crime, but to judge whether guilt has been proven. The set-up for this film is the sort of case of which he might have been thinking: one's first thought, seeing where the body landed, knowing who was in the house, is, basically, she HAD to have pushed him. And, as that on-air pundit says, it's a much more juicy explanation, making us more inclined to believe. When the first blood-splatter witness testifies, the noose feels like it's tightened around Huller irrevocably.
But then, the second blood expert appears, and tells us it's precisely the opposite. An unspoken (but hard to miss) element: the first witness is male, the second is female. Huller's husband has a cadre of male acquaintances/advocates (the shrink, the transcriber, the prosecutor) who all seem ready to take the husband's POV as truth. It takes Huller's team -- and Huller herself -- to demonstrate that there are other explanations for simple matters (the "stolen" plot point in her novel) that render the husband's descriptions (and conclusions drawn from them) not only limited, but misleading. These don't play, as in standard courtroom drama, as cat-and-mouse parries/reversals, but as offering fuller understanding of the complicated situation between a man and a woman in a marriage -- a state in which nuance/compromise is eternally present, and rarely clear to outsiders looking in.
When Presumed Innocent -- the novel, not the movie -- came out and was a sensation in summer 1987, something that made it so successful, beyond clever twists, was how it forced readers to confront the title phrase. We're told defendants in trials are presumed innocent, but I don't think most of us truly see it that way: by and large, I think we presume neutrality; feel that, as long as we look at the evidence, we can decide guilt by preponderance of facts, even when -- not infrequently -- a jury might rule otherwise. (You rarely hear, after an unexpected verdict, I guess the jury must be right; you hear, The guy got off.) What the justice system actually demands is that we, rather, presume innocence...unless guilt is clear and definitive, we should grant benefit of doubt. Presumed Innocent's cop character/friend of the protagonist operates on that basis: he suspects his friend might have killed the victim, but chooses to presume innocence and continue being his friend.
Huller's son, in this film, makes the same choice. His talk with his guardian, about how, when facts are ambiguous, one has to decide which to believe, could have come out of Scott Turow's universe. We don't know how far the kid goes in tilting to his mother's side -- might his story of the conversation about the dog be manufactured, to make her look better? What we do know is, he's decided to continue life with her; chosen the set of facts to which he will subscribe. (Incidentally: that testing sequence with the dog may have been the most painful part of the film, for me.)
The jury comes to the same conclusion, as they should have. I have no idea if Huller pushed him or not. It's hard to believe he could have just slipped and fallen. (Though, as someone I read elsewhere suggested, we keep seeing those shots of the dog rolling the rubber ball around the house -- what if one was near the window and he just slipped on it?) But guilt was clearly not proven, and, in that case, the path forward is clear: presume Huller innocent.
Two small things:
I agree with okri, the free-wheeling nature of the French legal system (I've seen it in numerous films, so I presume it's accurately depicted) will never not be jarring to me, as I'm imagining the multitude of objections that would have been entered in an American court.
I read someone elsewhere who thought it was too convenient that the kitchen argument between Huller and husband seemed to contain every element under contention in their marriage. (Extraordinary scene, by the way.) But, as someone who was married 28 years, let me assure you that, after you've been together long enough, every argument that reaches nuclear level ends up encompassing all the resentments each party has built up over the years. This could not have been more accurate.
Back before he went to the dark side, Alan Dershowitz once observed that juries need to understand their role is not to solve the crime, but to judge whether guilt has been proven. The set-up for this film is the sort of case of which he might have been thinking: one's first thought, seeing where the body landed, knowing who was in the house, is, basically, she HAD to have pushed him. And, as that on-air pundit says, it's a much more juicy explanation, making us more inclined to believe. When the first blood-splatter witness testifies, the noose feels like it's tightened around Huller irrevocably.
But then, the second blood expert appears, and tells us it's precisely the opposite. An unspoken (but hard to miss) element: the first witness is male, the second is female. Huller's husband has a cadre of male acquaintances/advocates (the shrink, the transcriber, the prosecutor) who all seem ready to take the husband's POV as truth. It takes Huller's team -- and Huller herself -- to demonstrate that there are other explanations for simple matters (the "stolen" plot point in her novel) that render the husband's descriptions (and conclusions drawn from them) not only limited, but misleading. These don't play, as in standard courtroom drama, as cat-and-mouse parries/reversals, but as offering fuller understanding of the complicated situation between a man and a woman in a marriage -- a state in which nuance/compromise is eternally present, and rarely clear to outsiders looking in.
When Presumed Innocent -- the novel, not the movie -- came out and was a sensation in summer 1987, something that made it so successful, beyond clever twists, was how it forced readers to confront the title phrase. We're told defendants in trials are presumed innocent, but I don't think most of us truly see it that way: by and large, I think we presume neutrality; feel that, as long as we look at the evidence, we can decide guilt by preponderance of facts, even when -- not infrequently -- a jury might rule otherwise. (You rarely hear, after an unexpected verdict, I guess the jury must be right; you hear, The guy got off.) What the justice system actually demands is that we, rather, presume innocence...unless guilt is clear and definitive, we should grant benefit of doubt. Presumed Innocent's cop character/friend of the protagonist operates on that basis: he suspects his friend might have killed the victim, but chooses to presume innocence and continue being his friend.
Huller's son, in this film, makes the same choice. His talk with his guardian, about how, when facts are ambiguous, one has to decide which to believe, could have come out of Scott Turow's universe. We don't know how far the kid goes in tilting to his mother's side -- might his story of the conversation about the dog be manufactured, to make her look better? What we do know is, he's decided to continue life with her; chosen the set of facts to which he will subscribe. (Incidentally: that testing sequence with the dog may have been the most painful part of the film, for me.)
The jury comes to the same conclusion, as they should have. I have no idea if Huller pushed him or not. It's hard to believe he could have just slipped and fallen. (Though, as someone I read elsewhere suggested, we keep seeing those shots of the dog rolling the rubber ball around the house -- what if one was near the window and he just slipped on it?) But guilt was clearly not proven, and, in that case, the path forward is clear: presume Huller innocent.
Two small things:
I agree with okri, the free-wheeling nature of the French legal system (I've seen it in numerous films, so I presume it's accurately depicted) will never not be jarring to me, as I'm imagining the multitude of objections that would have been entered in an American court.
I read someone elsewhere who thought it was too convenient that the kitchen argument between Huller and husband seemed to contain every element under contention in their marriage. (Extraordinary scene, by the way.) But, as someone who was married 28 years, let me assure you that, after you've been together long enough, every argument that reaches nuclear level ends up encompassing all the resentments each party has built up over the years. This could not have been more accurate.