Worms crawling over each other and through the earth: the forest stands silently begins with a disgusting and eerie close-up that lets us observe the nocturnal goings-on in detail. You don’t even want to imagine what’s behind this uncomfortable recording plugged. Nevertheless, Saralisa Volm’s feature film debut penetrates further and further into the darkness of the forest in the following hour and a half.
So far, Volm has mainly appeared as an actress in front of the camera. She is known for films like Finale and Hotel Desire. In recent years she has ventured behind the camera, first as a producer, now as a director. With the forest stands silent, she filmed it novel of the same name by Wolfram Fleischauerwith whom she has already collaborated on the Fikkefuchs she produced.
Silence stands the forest and the lies of the past
Set in 1999, the film takes you to the Bavarian province. Strictly speaking, we find ourselves in a forest in the Upper Palatinate. This is where the young postgraduate student Anja Grimm (Henriette Confurius) ends up doing an internship. She carefully takes samples off the ground and conscientiously records their findings on paper. She notices that something is wrong with the values.
You can watch the trailer for the forest stands silent here:
The forest stands silent – Trailer (German) HD
The deeper Anja digs into the ground, the deeper she penetrates into the past. It’s not just a place’s past, it’s also her own: She was here once when she was eight years old. The holiday in the Upper Palatinate ended with the death of her father. He was murdered in an extremely brutal manner, but one of the perpetrators was never caught – and now she herself is looking into the muzzle of a gun barrel.
If the worms didn’t make it clear at the beginning of the film, there are now no longer any doubts: Anja has entered a place where she is not wanted. Each of their questions threatens to bring well-kept secrets to light. Nevertheless, for a long time, the forest leaves us in the dark with the protagonist as to what it’s really about. This tension is unbearable.
The forest stands silently, enthusiastic with its atmosphere
The greatest strength of Volm’s film lies in the atmosphere. She stages the forest in a spooky way, when the leaves crackle and Anja gets lost in a maze of trees. However, the damp soil, hanging branches and dense pine needles also exude something calming. This place seems untouched. As the samples show, the harmony of nature is deceptive. There is terrible stuff here.
© Alpine Republic
The forest stands silent
The forest stands silently unfolds as a stirring thriller that connects Anja’s personal story with the closed provincial community and in the end the arc to one more larger historical context beats. In between there are lies, distrust and suppression. What the film expresses particularly well: how the truth is within reach and yet is never spoken out.
Not only the forest stands silent. Even more sinister than the tracking shots through foggy landscapes are the close-ups of the people who have institutionalized the silence. Volm’s film is fuller precise and frightening observations. And then there’s Henriette Confurius, who shines in her next leading role after the outstanding The Girl and the Spider.
The forest stands silent from today, the October 26, 2022in the cinema.
A notice: We published this article in a similar form in February 2022.
*. .
Are you going to see The Forest Stands Silent in the cinema?