Sandra and Sandra
The story is told well as the French can do. I often think of something I read years ago about French filmmaking. Something about a French film with long take for no reason on say a cloud. And it means something. Almost as if we're used to the French means of inserting some sort of element because they can. I was reminded of this when I watch Anatomy of a Fall. A lot of bold moves, fast editing, almost too much dialogue which really worked with the entire feel of the film. You felt uncomfortable. I kept getting that weird "don't open the door" notion as if I were watching a horror film. It is a psychological drama more than anything else if you ask me, and boy, does the director and screenwriter Justine Triet pull it off. I love the French New Wave feel leaving out chunks of dialogue subtitles for those of us poor slobs who don't speak French. All I can say is, "Cool." I love the feeling of a good film that reminds you oh so subtly you're not a member of the club. You can come to the party, but you have to stand at the door and watch.
But I want to talk about the lead character. There are so many formulas in this movie. Courtroom drama, unexplained sudden death possible murder, a family story. But the film steers itself away from following any stereotype and becomes its own story. Sandra Hüller shines in her role as a wife and mother, a flawed one. There were moments in the film when she easily could have fallen into a sympathetic maneuver, but she is too great an actress to give in to such theatrics. In the role of Sandra Voyter, you ask yourself how much of the character is the character and how much is the actor? Her ability to inject herself into the role is what makes the character and the film itself stay with you. Hollywood Reporter nailed it with "Hüller’s performance is a master class in ambiguity."
"Voyter is a complex part, a woman whose ultimate morality remains ambiguous to the audience until the very end. As such, it’s easy for the viewer to put every action Hüller takes under a microscope, examining every little tick in her performance to reach a verdict. What makes Hüller so great in the role is how she manages to make Sandra both a total enigma whose guilt or innocence can never be pinned down and a living breathing human whose actions never feel like misdirections for the viewer. Her performance runs both warm and hot, sympathetic and off-putting, and she’s the reason why “Anatomy of a Fall” lingers long after the credits roll." From IndieWire.
Complex to say the very least. You catch yourself comparing to the character. What would I do? Especially when your darkest side is displayed to a courtroom filled with judgemental characters smacking their lips at each taste of notorious behavior.Yet she sits proud almost unapologetic throughout the entire affair. You get the feeling given the opportunity to go back and re-edit her mistakes, Voyter would leave her life's script intact. Even when the smarmy-ass worm of a prosecutor pries apart her most private dalliances, she holds her head high and acknowledges her own actions, bad or good, wrong or right. She did them and says so. So when she states loudly, "I did not kill him," you believe her. But again, that is not the point of the movie. You almost feel kind of guilty asking yourself, did she do it? Like you're second guessing a great piece of work.
Hüller's own dog, a black Weimaraner, played the family pet in The Zone of Interest which thrills me. The entire cast was good especially Milo Michado-Graner who played the part of Voyter's blind son, Daniel. Also a big dog hug to wonderful Snoop the Border Collie with those amazing Lou Reed Pale Blue Eyes. I am looking forward to many more great roles starring Sandra Hüller. I hope she wins the Oscar for her nominated performance, although I haven't seen Poor Things yet. More to come.
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