"Anatomy of a Fall" movie trailer/new cinema
Besides the official competition at the Cannes Film Festival, there is also an unofficial and semi-official competition. A bunch of eccentric journalists (I'm not one of them, I swear!) hand out the Palm Dog award every year. They look at all the movies that have dogs in them, and there are usually quite a few, and then award the award to the dog that gave the best acting performance.
This year, the winner was Messi, the border collie who plays Snoop, a puppy who turns out to be one of the central characters in "Anatomy of a Fall." A day after winning the award, the film itself received a slightly more prestigious statuette - the Golden Palm, the Palm D'or, the most important award at the festival and one of the most important in the world of cinema. As far as I remember, at least during my time at the Riviera, this is the first time that the same film has won both of these awards - both the Palme d'Or and the prize for the dog. You decide what is more important.
This anecdote is important because it makes clear how "Anatomy of a Fall" is a one-off and impeccable film. Everything about it is perfect: the script, the music, the words, the sounds, the people and the dogs. If there was a rabbit in it, it would probably win a prize too. By the way, since winning in Cannes, Messi has become an international star, and they even flew him to the Oscar ceremony, where he won a seat of honor and then became a viral star. This is not a joke either of course - there is a lot of evidence of this on the net.
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At the ceremony itself, "Anatomy of a Fall" was nominated for many awards, including in the category of best film, and won one award - the best original screenplay. Justine Treya, who also directed, wrote it together with her partner in life Arthur Harari. Only now, three weeks after the Oscar ceremony and ten months after the premiere in Cannes, the film is being widely distributed commercially in Israel. If you happen to have already watched it in some way - go watch it again. From experience, it only gets better on second viewing. And if you haven't seen it yet - what are you waiting for?
At the center of the film is a successful German writer, married to a failed French writer. English is most of the time the common language between them, so even though it is a French production - a significant part of the dialogues are in the English language.
The two have a common son, who finds it difficult to tolerate the incessant fights between them, and shows unusual intelligence for his young age. He is played by the kid Milo Machado-Garner who also does a wonderful job in his first major film role. Here the dog also enters the picture: the child suffers from visual impairment and is helped by a dog, which supports him physically and mentally.
As the name of the film implies, the French writer falls to his death - this is not a spoiler of course, it happens at the very beginning. The question is whether he ended his life, or whether his partner pushed him, and that is already a matter for the law authorities.
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A tour de force. Sandra Holler in "Anatomy of a Fall"/New Cinema
Most of the film takes place within the walls of the courthouse, but the result is not a legal drama. It is not clear what exactly happened between the deceased and his widow on the day of his death, but it is clear that their relationship died much earlier, and "Anatomy of a Fall" examines how this happened. It could also be called "pictures from married life". Instead of making another "true crime" movie, the French filmmaker uses the mystery to deal with broader issues - the balance of power between the sexes, the double standards towards women and men in married life, and the fragility of the male ego.
The heroine is played by Sandra Hüller, a German actress who enjoyed an extraordinary breakthrough this year, and can now also be seen in "The Zone of Interest". She was nominated for an Oscar for her role in Anatomy of a Fall and lost the statuette to the invincible Emma Stone. Nevertheless, this is a performance for the Pantheon. Her climax is an unforgettable monologue. I will always remember how I watched him in the hall to the limit. The audience was glued to their seats and there was complete silence, which dissipated in a collective gasp immediately at the end of the tour-de-force of the pulsating actress. I felt like I was on a flight where all the passengers hit an air pocket together and then react with a common shudder.
The film has many qualities, and the greatest virtue is its willingness to dig into the guts of the characters. Holler does not try to design an ideal heroine. Instead, she builds a complete, complex and authentic character - a woman who inspires appreciation and repulsion in equal measure, who even if she is not criminally guilty of her partner's death, she can be blamed for many other things, but if her partner was still alive, she probably could be blamed for them as well Him, and really us too. The crimes here are personal, human and probably also inevitable. Teriya and Harari put a mirror before themselves, before their heroes - and before us
The power of the dog. From "Anatomy of a Fall"/Cannes Festival
Like most movies these days, "Anatomy of a Fall" is also long - two and a half hours. Teriya manages to keep things interesting thanks to different points of view, chief among them the couple's shared son. The different perspectives allow the script to surprise every time, with turns from different directions. In the end it will also become clear that a dog that appears in the first act will bark in the third act. It's not just that Messi won the award: he is involved in two of the most powerful, brilliant and chilling moments we've seen in cinema recently.
"Anatomy of a Fall" is superbly made, without falls. The script, the directing work and the acting performances: everything here is at the highest level, it could be called "Anatomy of the canals". You can also say many more words about him, but I will leave the right of speech to Messi the puppy. He would surely say - heb heb heb, in front of a film like this, you don't stop wagging your tail!
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