Anatomy of a Fall (2023)

Sandra Hüller: Sandra Voyter

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Quotes 

• Sandra Voyter : Sometimes a couple is kind of a chaos and everybody is lost. Sometimes we fight together and sometimes we fight alone, and sometimes we fight against each other, that happens.

• Sandra Voyter : You complain about a life that YOU chose. You are not a victim. Not at all. Your generosity conceals something dirtier and meaner. You're incapable of facing your ambitions and you resent me for it, but I'm not the one who put you where you are. I had nothing to do with it! You're not sacrificing yourself as you say. You choose to sit on the sidelines because you're afraid! Your pride makes your head explode before you can even come up with a germ of an idea! You wake up at 40 needing someone to blame. You're the one to blame! You're petrified by your own fucking standards and your fear of failure! This is the truth!

• Sandra Voyter : My love. I just want you to know that I'm not that monster, you know. Everything you hear in the trial it's just.. it's twisted. It wasn't like that.

• Sandra Voyter : I'm sorry to interrupt, I'm sorry. But... I don't know, you, you come here, okay, with your, maybe your opinion, and you tell me who Samuel was, and what we were going through... But what you say is just a... it is just... a little part of the whole situation, you know? I mean, sometimes... Sometimes a couple is kind of a chaos. And everybody is lost. No? And sometimes we fight together and sometimes we fight alone and sometimes we fight against each other, that happens, and I think it's possible that Samuel needed to see things the way you describe them, but... if- if I'd been seeing a therapist, he could stand here too and say very ugly things about Samuel. But would those things be true?

• Sandra Voyter : You know, when you lose, you lose.

  Sandra Voyter : But when you win, you expect some kind of reward... and there isn't any.

  Sandra Voyter : You leave empty-handed.

• Sandra Voyter : I did not kill him.

  Maître Vincent Renzi : That's not the point.

• Sandra Voyter : Somebody said, of course money doesn't make you happy, but it's still better to cry in a car than in a subway.

• Samuel Maleski : Daniel hears you speak in a language that has nothing to do with his life. Just because you imposed this on him, just like everything else. We're on your turf, all the time...

  Sandra Voyter : Yeah, in your country. Every single day, I have to accept that we live in your hometown. The people that you grew up with, they look down on me whenever I don't make the effort to smile at them. You don't think me living here counts as meeting you on your turf?

  Samuel Maleski : You never smile at anyone.

  Sandra Voyter : Yeah! That's why you love me, right? Because if you wanted to have some stupid bitch who grins at your friends at the ski slopes, you'd have picked someone else.

• Sandra Voyter : But I'm innocent. You know that, right?

  Maître Vincent Renzi : Yes.

  Sandra Voyter : I mean, really.

  Maître Vincent Renzi : Yes.

  Sandra Voyter : I don't know what you're thinking really.

  Maître Vincent Renzi : I think a lot of things I don't tell you. Otherwise, you'd fire me right now.

  Sandra Voyter : No, no, no, Vincent. In your head, you're thinking, aren't you, because sometimes, when you look at me, just like right now, I can feel that you are judging me. I don't know what you think.

  Maître Vincent Renzi : Sandra, I believe you. I'm not judging you.

• Sandra Voyter : I never saw Daniel as handicapped. You know? I... I... I wanted to protect him from that perception. Because as soon as you mark a child that way, you condemn him to not, to not... see his life as his own, whereas, he should feel that it's his best life, because it's the only life he's got, it is his own.

• Sandra Voyter : Everything changed after the accident. Uh, Daniel was four. That day, Samuel was supposed to pick him up from school. But he was on a roll with his writing, so he called a babysitter at the last minute, and the babysitter showed up late. And as they were crossing the street, a motorcycle hit Daniel, his optic nerve was permanently damaged. After that, Samuel became obsessive about it, he blamed himself on a loop: If only he'd come pick him up on time... He was overcome with guilt... and perhaps he never truly escaped that feeling. We spent that whole year at the hospital with Daniel. We began having financial problems... and Samuel started taking antidepressants.

• Sandra Voyter : I just wish you would be shielded from all this, you know, that you could do... that you could do children's stuff, just a little bit, that you could be a child, just a bit longer, you know?

• Sandra Voyter : Your father was my soul mate... We chose each other and I loved him... But how do you prove that?

• Sandra Voyter : That recording is not reality. It is a part of it, maybe. If you have an extreme moment in life, an emotional peak, and you focus on it, of course, it crushes everything. It may seem like irrefutable proof, but actually warps everything. It's not reality. It's our voices, that's true, but it's not who we are.

  Maître Vincent Renzi : I don't give a fuck about what is reality, okay? You... you need to start seeing yourself the way others are going to perceive you. A trial is not about 'the truth,' it's... it's about...

• Samuel Maleski : You really have no shame. That's your superpower, it allows you to see no one but yourself.

  Sandra Voyter : I see you very clearly. I just don't see you as a victim.

• Sandra Voyter : I left my shithole in Germany and ended up stuck here... in his shithole.

• Sandra Voyter : I can't trust someone if I can't put an animal's head on them.

• Sandra Voyter : He was one of the only persons I knew, when he walked into a room, something shifted. The... the atmosphere changed. And I suppose that's charm, isn't it? It's, um... I... I... I fell in love with his charm.

• Sandra Voyter : He was a great teacher. He was... He had a... He had a way of making everything sound alive and accessible, it was great.

• Sandra Voyter : People exaggerate and alter facts when they argue.

• Sandra Voyter : You made us live here among the goats! You complain about the life that you chose! You're not a victim! Not at all!

• Sandra Voyter : Me, personally, I refuse to rot inside, so I find solutions, and at this point, sex was just a question of personal hygiene.

• Samuel Maleski : Why do you refuse to talk about it? Why can't you just admit that it has to do with how things are divided between us?

  Sandra Voyter : Because you are wrong. I don't owe you any time, I do my part. C'mon, let's not start taking inventory here, please. Let's relax. I love you.

• Samuel Maleski : I've given you too much... too much time, too many concessions. I want this time back, and you owe it to me, be fair!

  Sandra Voyter : [laughing]  I'm sorry, but no, are you insane? I don't owe you anything, really.

• Sandra Voyter : You should be flattered that I was inspired by you. This is life, things circulate, you know.

  Samuel Maleski : Yes.

  Sandra Voyter : Yes? And frankly, I wish you'd be inspired to 'plunder' me someday.

• Samuel Maleski : I'm saying maybe, just maybe, things are a little out of balance between us, and I want you to take a look at that. Why is this so hard to discuss?

  Sandra Voyter : First of all, I don't believe in the notion of reciprocity in a couple. It's naive and frankly it's depressing. Yes. And I think discussing it is a waste of time, considering the state you're in, seriously. All this blah, blah, blah here and more time is gone, all this time spent chitchatting could be spent in silence, doing whatever you want to do, if only you knew what it is that...

• Sandra Voyter : I didn't want to be seen as guilty.

  Avocat général : As no guilty person ever does.

• Sandra Voyter : Darling, the book just came out, you know very well it's just this time...

  Samuel Maleski : It's always 'just this time.' Whether you have a book out, or you're writing, or you need space to figure out what to write... I mean, I've been following your lead for years! I can't do anything with my time, do you understand? It's not my time, it's yours!

• Sandra Voyter : I can live without sex, but not forever.

• Sandra Voyter : Because I'm not French, you're not German, so we create a middle ground. So nobody has to meet the other on their turf. This is what English is for, it's our meeting point, you can't blame me for that.

• Sandra Voyter : Now, with hindsight, it seems possible that he could have provoked this fight just to record it.

  Avocat général : Wait, are you implying you're the victim of a twisted man?

  Maître Nour Boudaoud : Seriously? He recorded her in secret. It's a valid question. You forget the situation is perverse.

  Avocat général : Now the victim is on trial!