NZIFF: Anatomy of a Fall

This year’s Palme d’Or winner launches our Festival with a profound and galvanising reflection on truth, facts and fiction, pivoting around another extraordinary central performance from Sandra Hüller—familiar to audiences for her work in Toni Erdmann (NZIFF 2016) and In the Aisles, among other terrific films.

Director Justine Triet’s sober courtroom procedural is a departure from the films honoured by Cannes’ prestigious top award in the past two years—with which we closed NZIFF 2022 (Triangle of Sadness) and 2021 (Titane) and whose directors were respectively the Head and a Member of the Cannes’ Competition Jury 2023.
Anatomy of a Fall may not appear to share those two titles’ raucous take-no-prisoners stance. But as it pries apart the intricacies of a relationship between successful writer wife and thwarted would-be writer husband, between parents and child, between stories told and reality lived, it proves to be as equally bold and engrossing.
Rated M