by Jarrod Jones. With the 59th Chicago International Film Festival in full swing, DoomRocket is here to highlight its choicest selections. In review: Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall; Ernst De Geer’s The Hypnosis.
ANATOMY OF A FALL. [France.]
A man falls to his death in an isolated home in the French Alps. Was it an accident? Did he take his own life? Did somebody push him? As a courtroom drama, Anatomy of a Fall pursues the truth, but it’s more interested in detailing the detritus of the shattered family at the center of this Palme d’Or-winning melodrama from Justine Triet. Once it unearths the fraught relationship between a successful writer (Sandra Hüller) and her husband (Samuel Theis) — who, we find out, was a frustrated writer himself — the soapy intrigue begins. Anatomy of a Fall posits tricky questions about spousal obligations, the give-and-take of marriage, and the hidden resentments that form over years when one finds fulfillment outside the family unit as the other loses themself inside it. It’s good when it focuses on these things. I wish it was better when it doesn’t.
The critical adulation heaped on Triet’s film isn’t entirely unfounded; there are moments of transcendent despair, and the feeling of uncertainty, especially as the facts of the case are laid out, makes this an eminently watchable movie if a thematically clumsy one. (The young son at the center of this story, played marvelously by Milo Machado Graner, is partially blind, as all of us are to the truth, non?)
Triet initially assembles a quietly observed domestic drama and later decides to whip up thrills in the courtroom. It’s a chaotic choice that makes baffling use of the camera: frantic snap-zooms and handheld faux-documentary shots during the court scenes killed the immersion for me. (Aren’t the mechanisms of French justice odd enough?) I might not be alone in this; one of the more egregious zooms triggered a release of laughter in my theater during what was otherwise a dramatically piqued moment. In another showy sequence, a camera ceaselessly whips right to left as a character is bombarded by two lines of inquiry. We understand what Triet is attempting to convey here, because it’s obvious. That clumsiness takes on other forms as the story progresses, but spoiling an otherwise fine yarn about a broken home would be rude. Still: this dominated Cannes?
6.5 out of 10
Directed by Justine Triet.
Written by Justine Triet and Arthur Harari.
Cinematography Simon Beaufils.
Starring Sandra Hüller, Swann Arlaud, Milo Machado-Graner, Antoine Reinartz, Samuel Theis, Jehnny Beth, Saadia Bentaieb, Camille Rutherford, Anne Rotger, and Sophie Fillières.
Produced by Marie-Ange Luciani and David Thion.
Rated R for frustrated relationship language, and a small bit of forensic detail.
THE HYPNOSIS [Sweden, Norway, France; North American premiere.]
Here’s an acidic black comedy from Swedish filmmaker Ernst De Geer about the pressure to succeed at a Certain Age (30/40ish) and that fork in the road most relationships encounter where priorities shift and two people who loved each other for years become strangers. Vera (Asta August), a driven young professional on the cusp of pitching a health app with her partner André (Herbert Nordrum, of The Worst Person in the World), sees a hypnotherapist to help her quit smoking. The smoking goes kaput. So does her restraint. It turns out that free-wheeling Vera is sublime, especially for those who will doubtlessly watch her antics unfold through their fingers. André might appreciate her new vivacity, too, if they weren’t currently in a workshop to finesse their pitch alongside more successful young corpo-types who value professionalism over personality.
As this is De Geer’s first film as a director, it’s astonishing how acutely he captures social awkwardness. The Hypnosis is weapons-grade cringe that would be exhausting to watch if the performances weren’t so rich and its observations didn’t feel so true. (Yeah, professional types can be stiff! I’ll say it!) Concerning the former, August and Nordrum are wonderful in this — particularly August, who embodies her character’s newfound joie de vivre with smiles, dancing, and a strange burst of imagination. Naturally, this causes André to counterbalance her whimsy for assertiveness; the stakes in their professional and romantic lives are high! Yes, the pressure to perform over personal health makes monsters of us all, and this is where The Hypnosis works its sardonic charms. De Geer wants to comment on this sphere of influence that poisons the soul. I say, let him. A little schadenfreude in the workplace (or the bedroom) never hurt anyone.
7.5 out of 10
Directed by Ernst De Geer.
Written by Ernst De Geer and Mads Stegger.
Cinematography by Jonathan Bjerstedt,
Starring Asta Kamma August, Herbert Nordrum, Andrea Edwards, David Fukamachi Regnfors, Moa Niklasson, and
Simon Rajala.
Produced by Kristina Börjeso, Laure Parleani, Elisa Fernanda Pirir, Mimmi Spång, Bérénice Vincent, Håkon Ludvig Grønvold, et al.
Unrated. Contains prickly swearing and an abrupt moment of frontal nudity.
Our CIFF 2023 coverage continues all week.
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