Audiences fall for arresting whodunit

Thought-provoking murder mystery tackles societal preconceptions about marriage and traditional gender roles, Xu Fan reports.

Despite having just disembarked from an 11-hour flight on a rainy March night, French director Justine Triet proceeded directly to the Peking University Centennial Memorial Hall.

Upon appearing on the stage, she was greeted with enthusiastic applause from the audience, who had just watched her acclaimed directorial effort, Anatomy of a Fall.

The film, which opened across Chinese mainland theaters on Friday, has won 280 awards and nominations worldwide, with the highest accolades being the Palme d'Or for best film at the 76th Cannes Film Festival, and the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay at the 96th Academy Awards.

Co-written by Triet and her partner, Arthur Harari, this suspense-filled movie delves into the life of Sandra, a German novelist residing with her husband, Samuel, a French teacher and writer, and their 11-year-old son, Daniel, in their isolated chalet in the French Alps.

One day, a graduate student arrives to interview Sandra, but the session is quickly terminated when Samuel, who seems jealous and unhappy about the interview, starts playing excessively loud music. A short time later, as their young son returns home after walking his dog, he discovers his father lying lifeless and covered in blood on the snowy ground outside the house.

Sandra finds herself accused of murdering her husband, spurred by several suspicious pieces of evidence and a recording of a heated argument the day before Samuel's death. A year later, during the trial, the couple's marriage is scrutinized, exposing harsh and intimate truths.

For many Chinese fans, the appeal of the movie, which has already obtained a high score of 8.6 points out of 10 on the popular review aggregator Douban, lies in its ability to provoke in-depth discussion about gender inequality and stereotypes toward women, according to Beijing-based film critic Yuan Yun'er.

During the couple's argument, Samuel criticizes Sandra for not fulfilling her responsibilities as a mother and wife, which he believes has left him trapped, educating and spending all his time with Daniel, forcing him to set aside his own dream of becoming a writer. Sandra angrily argues that his difficulties in time management and writing efficiency breed insecurity, prompting him to unjustly point fingers at her.

Dai Jinhua, a film scholar and professor at Peking University, describes the reversal of traditional roles for women and men, as demonstrated in the argument, as a very poignant point.

"As a feminist, I find it thought-provoking when a man assumes a family role traditionally performed by a woman. For a long time, women have been conditioned to take on household responsibilities, accept the norm of prioritizing their husband's career over their own, and experience guilt and self-recrimination when any misfortune befalls the family," she says.

"I believe the movie expresses this so realistically, accurately, restrainedly, and delicately because it is told through the perspective of a female director," Dai adds.

Along with Dong Qiang, the dean of the French Department at Peking University, Dai attended a post-screening session with Triet to discuss the movie at the university on March 24.

Admitting the significance of her being a female creator, Triet explains that the film centers on a female writer, exploring how she views and understands the world. She hopes that this film will encourage more female viewers not to passively accept certain conventions of society, but to think and redefine their attitudes toward life.

As a mother of two children, the 45-year-old director explains that the story was inspired by her curiosity to explore how her daughter, who was 10 years old at the time, would perceive family dynamics and the complexities of life.

The female protagonist, Sandra, is portrayed by German actress Sandra Huller, while the husband, Samuel, is portrayed by French actor Samuel Theis.

Triet explains that there were different reasons why the characters are named after the actors.

While watching Huller in the German movie Toni Erdmann, a comedy about a practical joker father and his hardworking daughter, Triet was captivated by Huller's natural and realistic acting skills and had a strong wish to collaborate with her.

So, the director took a sort of strategic approach by using the actress' name for her character, believing it might increase the chances of convincing Huller to join the cast.

"Sometimes the actors and actresses might exaggerate the suspense a bit in genre movies, but Huller shows no such sign of that in her performance. She adopts an almost documentary-like approach to portray her character," says Triet.

Another scene shows the protagonist hugging her son following the discovery of her husband's body. [Photo provided to China Daily]
For Theis, the name happened to be a coincidence. Triet chose him after auditioning 40 actors, and the most suitable candidate just happened to have the same name as the character.

A pivotal scene in the movie features local police officers dropping a dummy — the same height and weight as Samuel — from the chalet's attic window while investigating the details of his death. For the female director, the inspiration for the falling man came from the animated opening sequence of the American period drama, Mad Men, in which a man is seen falling from a skyscraper.

There is a Chinese connection too. Despite the recent Beijing trip being Triet's first time in China, she is familiar with Chinese food, and one scene near the end of the film features the female protagonist dining with her attorney and several friends in a Chinese restaurant.

The movie has garnered widespread attention online, propelling it to the second slot in the national box-office charts of new movies on Friday, behind Hollywood CGI monster-fest Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.