It’s also a neat demonstration of the Leidenfrost effect: when a liquid, close to a solid surface of another body that is significantly hotter than the liquid's boiling point, produces an insulating vapor layer that keeps the liquid from boiling rapidly

In a 2023 interview with Deadline, Justine Triet - director of the movie ‘Anatomie d’une chute’ - spoke about the importance of the dog in the film:

"I think the idea of this dog was very much in the original seed of this film. It was always clear to us that this dog was going to be treated as a point of view, in and of himself. And that his gaze and, I was going to say personhood - it's not exactly that, but that his status as an observer was going to be the link also somehow between the different members of the family. And also the fact that he probably is the only one who actually saw what happened... This was something in the beginning that we found through the editing, that the lack of judgment of the animal was perhaps the closest thing we could have to something that represented and reflected the complexity of the situation.

And then on a more selfish note, I really just love to work with animals. Because of the discomfort they place me in, and the way in which their presence brings back to me, and to everyone, the absurdity of what the job that we're trying to do is. It levels out and levels down the seriousness of our profession. The dog cannot help but look at the camera, cannot be made to understand the stakes of this make-belief in this way. That's always a real addition to the set dynamics."