Readers Write In #667: ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ and the subversion of narrative conventions

By Hari PR

It is clear from the first scene of ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ that a little boy and his pet dog who occupy the first frame are going to be key characters. We are also immediately made aware of marital disharmony between the two leads, in literally the loudest possible way. We expect to get to the meat of the conflict, but as at many points in the movie, our expectation is bucked, and what we get is a murder.

From here, the movie becomes difficult to categorise. It is not a murder mystery in the traditional sense. There is only one suspect, and soon we learn that this suspect is going to have to stand trial for murder. We then expect a courtroom drama with twists and turns, and we do get some of that, but again in ways we wouldn’t expect in a usual courtroom narrative. There is, for instance, an audio recording played as evidence in court, which abruptly morphs into a flashback scene which is so stunningly written, staged, and acted that I found myself slumped forward towards the screen in fascination. Other proceedings in the courtroom, such as a psychiatrist taking the witness stand, or a lawyer reading out a passage from a book, serve more as an examination of human biases and perceptions than as a step towards ‘solving’ the case.

The conclusion, too, defies the viewer’s expectation of closure. The ending isn’t exactly open-ended in the way that we understand it, i.e. an ending with multiple valid interpretations. To me, it seemed that the makers were less interested in an ending that would close all open loops, than in an ending that provides closure to the characters – in particular the boy who, like us, is piecing together the story – with the imperfect information that they have, and with it the knowledge that they would never be able to know the ‘truth’.