Justine Triet’s 2023 drama film Anatomy of a Fall chronicles the aftermath of a mysterious death as the protagonist’s husband falls from the window of their Alpine chalet’s attic. Their eleven-year-old visually impaired son finds his father dead from the fall. Amid questions of the possibility of an accident or a suicide attempt, the protagonist is indicted on charges of homicide and a trial follows. Throughout the film, it is never made clear what exactly happened. Instead, the narrative meditates on themes of biases inherent in individual subjectivity. “Sometimes a couple is kind of a chaos and everybody is lost,” says the main character. Write a story that revolves around the chaos caused by the unknowability of a dramatic situation. Perhaps it’s a classic case of he-said-she-said or an incident with no direct witnesses and only bits and pieces overseen or overheard. How do your characters deal with the fallout of never knowing what truly transpired?
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