The first question that is asked in “Anatomy of a Fall,” a new film from the French director Justine Triet, is a simple one: “What do you want to know?” The line, which could stand as a motto for the whole movie, is spoken by a writer, Sandra Voyter (Sandra Hüller), in a chalet in the Alps. She is being interviewed by a graduate student, Zoé (Camille Rutherford), although their conversation is soon drowned out by a rumpus from above—specifically, an instrumental version of “P.I.M.P.,” by 50 Cent, played with a thunderous boom by Sandra’s husband, Samuel Maleski (Samuel Theis), who is also a writer. Either he’s deliberately sabotaging the interview or he wants to trigger an avalanche.
Of Samuel himself we see no sign, for the moment, and that matters. It foreshadows how the story will unfold. So much in “Anatomy of a Fall” is overheard, heard but not seen, seen but misunderstood, misremembered, conjured out of conjecture, or unwisely taken on trust. When we do catch sight of Samuel, he’s dead—sprawled in the snow beside the chalet, with a deep cranial wound and a trail of blood. So, did he tumble over a balcony or was he shoved? Did he hit his head on the edge of the shed below, or had the blow already been struck? Did he perish by his own hand, or at Sandra’s? Is 50 Cent a suspect? The puzzles proliferate. Warning: Do not expect them all to be solved.
この記事は The New Yorker の October 16, 2023 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
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この記事は The New Yorker の October 16, 2023 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
President for Sale - A survey of today's political ads.
On a mid-October Sunday not long ago sun high, wind cool-I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll. There were few people on the streets-like the population of a lot of capital cities, Harrisburg's swells on weekdays with lawyers and lobbyists and legislative staffers, and dwindles on the weekends. But, on the façades of small businesses and in the doorways of private homes, I could see evidence of political activity. Across from the sparkling Susquehanna River, there was a row of Democratic lawn signs: Malcolm Kenyatta for auditor general, Bob Casey for U.S. Senate, and, most important, in white letters atop a periwinkle not unlike that of the sky, Kamala Harris for President.
LIFE ADVICE WITH ANIMAL ANALOGIES
Go with the flow like a dead fish.
CONNOISSEUR OF CHAOS
The masterly musical as mblages of Charles Ives
BEAUTIFUL DREAMERS
How the Brothers Grimm sought to awaken a nation.
THE ARTIFICIAL STATE
A different kind of machine politics.
THE HONEST ISLAND GREG JACKSON
Craint did not know when he had come to the island or why he had come.
THE SHIPWRECK DETECTIVE
Nigel Pickford has spent a lifetime searching for sunken treasure-without leaving dry land.
THE HOME FRONT
Some Americans are preparing for a second civil war.
SYRIA'S EMPIRE OF SPEED
Bashar al-Assad's regime is now a narco-state reliant on sales of amphetamines.
TUCKER EVERLASTING
Trump's favorite pundit takes his show on the road.