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Our dastardly preference for detective stories is nothing new; even Taylor Swift cites Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as one of her favorite shows. There’s an excruciating excitement and interest in watching those headline-grabbing reenactments take place in front of other people; Thank God, it’s them and not us. And everything in the genre, from Dateline to Serial, uses sound design to its narrative advantage, creating a haunting, haunting, and intense soundscape that raises the dramatic bar.
It would be easy for Anatomy of a Fall, Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or-winning film, which premiered to rave reviews at the New York Film Festival this month, to borrow this trope. The movie has a lewd premise that will make the crime real. The lovers salivate: after the death of Sandra’s husband (Sandra Huller), she is accused of murder. His son Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner) was the only other user present at the crime scene, but his visual impairment makes him unreliable. However, Daniel’s vision also reinforces the film’s greatest strength. To compensate for the shortcomings of a sense, Daniel relies on his ear, just like the film, for an exclusive and incredibly successful effect. This is a film explained through its sound in a way that any other detective story deserves to be encouraged: in a way that is thrifty and intentional, not unpleasantly manipulative.
In fact, the music of Anatomy of a Fall is more meaningful than that of any other detective story of recent times, largely because it all comes from within. Instead of a soundtrack, it uses only music played diegetically through the characters in the film. Itself. An essential component of the investigation is the song that Vincent (Swann Arlaud), Sandra’s husband, was singing just before her death. Throughout the trial, which is the main focus of the film, we are informed that the couple’s courtship had broken irreparably by the time of their death. Vincent, according to Sandra, had even begun to get excited about intentionally annoying his wife, such as playing music too loud while she was looking for work.
The song in question is one that most of the audience probably wouldn’t notice at first glance: a looped version of “P. I. M. P. “of 50 Cent of the German band Bacao Rhythm and Steel Band. What 50 Cent meant by the song is surely irrelevant; it now belongs entirely to Anatomy of a Fall, which uses it to hilarious and unsettling effect. The steel-drummed rendition of one of the earliest rap songs is inherently funny, yes, but when Vincent is discovered dead while still leaving his upstairs office, he becomes a key component of the crime scene.
Much of the investigation hinges on whether Daniel can simply hear the beginning and end of his parents’ verbal exchange amid the din of the horribly loud song, as he claimed; If he did, he could exonerate his mother, for the time that elapsed between the end of their verbal exchange and his father’s death. This song is so loud that it’s even in the courtroom; “PIPMAN” is an inextricable component of the most stressful time of Sandra’s life. And since Anatomy of a Fall exclusively uses music set or directed through the characters themselves, Triet doesn’t use “P. I. M. P. “to evoke a feeling in the audience. Its goal is to evoke a painful memory only for Sandra and Daniel.
Sandra Hüller, Milo Machado Graner and Samuel Theis.
We don’t amplify a Pavlovian reaction to the notes heard from the metal canopy of the drum because the film continually integrates it into other scenes; We do this because it is used sparingly, only at times when the characters deliberately evoke the testimony of Sandra or Daniel. And because his court appearances are so captivating and exhausting, we also naturally come to the story of “P. I. M. P. with the pain and worry they feel. Finally, this loop of “P. I. M. P. “it becomes the cause of what we know to be of the utmost importance: the words that Sandra and Daniel utter in those moments.
“Anatomy of a Fall” is a thrilling refinement of the dramatic formula
For a film that, as it should be, reproduces the stormy party of a court, what it is about is what is said or not said; If a distracting metal drum (or any other sound) is bent over it, it can sway us in a biased direction, just as the jury tries not to. A smaller film would also force a song like “P. I. M. P. to represent something, such as whether or not Sandra is innocent; A more serious instrumental repetition game may be believed to suggest triumph, pain, or pity. This is the norm in many crime dramas, which use music to align us with a certain character or allude to vital parts of the overall investigation. The strength of Anatomy of a Fall comes from its neutrality, where we have to identify for ourselves whether or not Sandra killed her husband based on what is presented to us.
Sandra Huller.
The only other notable piece of music in the film is the one Daniel plays, in a similar and repetitive manner. He is obsessed with learning the piece “Asturias (Leyenda)” on the piano, betting on it as a form of self-appeasement. Daniel has become a committed piano student in the years since his horrific accident, in which his optic nerve was permanently damaged. With his impaired eyesight, what worries him most is his hearing; This comes in handy when the test of your life revolves around music. Every time we see Daniel outside the courtroom, silently wondering if he can accept the truth with his mother or if he really knew his father, he holds the keys in his hands, looking back and forth to master “Legend. “
This is another apparent musical cue that Triet can simply upload as a tool elsewhere, something like a “Daniel Theme. “But such false notes would deprive Anatomy of a Fall of its religion in the very genuine force of truth, emotion, and truth. the way they combine belief and belief. No heavy hands are needed here, not even with the metal drum that plays “P. I. M. P. or Daniel’s beloved piano, and even less so with the film’s superbly understated music selection. Not each and every one of the mysteries of the court desires something as dramatic as a guy dropping dead to the sound of an incongruous piece; However, it is possible for everyone to gain advantages from this point of appreciating the delights of diegetic music.
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