Why Anatomy of a Fall director Justine Triet creates unapologetic female characters
Triet sits down with Q's Tom Power to discuss her Palme d’Or winning film
This year France's Justine Triet became the third female director to win the illustrious Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
Her fiery acceptance speech became a point of discussion, as she articulated her support for the protests in France over pension reform.
"It's true that in that first instant, that speech and that intervention was very much talked about," the director tells Q's Tom Power, with the help of her interpreter Assia Turquier-Zauberman.
"I think for me it was the greatest experience of misogyny that I've ever had."
Triet is no stranger to sexism in the film industry. That's why her Palme d'Or-winning drama Anatomy of a Fall is so prescient.
Set in a courtroom, the film puts the details of a marriage on trial when a successful writer named Sandra is charged with the murder of her husband. Throughout the film, tensions in their marriage are revealed — including the husband's jealousy towards Sandra's success.
"It was quite a natural thing to write for me, [as] I was aware that there was a reversal of the gender norms in that dynamic," says Triet. "I hadn't seen so much in films: this female character who was so unapologetic for the way that she lives and for the success that she has."
WATCH | Official trailer for Anatomy of a Fall:
Advocating for equity
Over the decades, Cannes has had a reputation for being male-dominated. The lack of female representation reflects the industry as a whole, and Triet has been outspoken in her desire for parity in filmmaking — suggesting that quotas could alleviate many of the issues.
"Before MeToo, it was sort of seen as a non-topic, it wasn't really something that people were paying attention to and then it became an undeniably important subject," she tells Power. "I believe that until we have 50 per cent parity everywhere, in the juries and at every level, it's not just going to happen on its own."
"I still hope that eventually it is able to become a non-topic again and that we could be seen as expressing something universal rather than a kind of niche of women's movies."
Articulating the personal
Anatomy of a Fall is at its core a courtroom procedural. But the film also explores the complexity of family by having Sandra's son, Daniel, bear witness to the story of how his parents unraveled.
Triet says that this narrative device was inspired by what she saw amongst friends around her.
"When a child is born, some kind of the balance of whatever reciprocity was found tends to go off kilter," she says. "It's very rare to find a situation in which one person doesn't end up eating the other to some degree."
Triet also took inspiration from her own daughter getting older.
"I started wondering how much she knew about me, about the life that I had had before having her, but also about our family history," says Triet.
"The question became, how does one bring a child into their own history? How does one transmit that history onto them? So it is quite a complex sentiment for me and I ended up writing a script that's very far from my life, but it was very much influenced by that."
WATCH | Justine Triet's interview with Tom Power:
The full interview with Justine Triet is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Interview with Justine Triet produced by Glory Omotayo.
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