SPECTRUM CULTURE: The Silent Forest
February 1, 2023
"Many films hinge on characters uncovering dark secrets by digging through the past, but few do so quite as literally as German film The Silent Forest. Set in 1999, the directorial debut of Saralisa Volm revolves around a forestry intern named Anja Grimm (Henriette Confurius), who pounds metal probes into the earth to collect soil samples in a stretch of forest where her researcher father inexplicably went missing when she was a child. The locals are unnerved by her poking around in these woods, especially within a particular manmade meadow that’s turning up some strange compositional findings. Before long, it appears that this soil may be hiding quite a bit of dirt on the local denizens."
"the film offers compelling performances, stark atmosphere and bleak subject matter that helps make The Silent Forest a somber meditation on the malignancy of burying evil deeds."
