What if the suicide
were just the beginning of the problems? The young and aspiring
Portuguese genre auteur José Pedro Lopes poses the same
question with his lean and artsy feature-length debut The Forest
of Lost Souls. Judging by the result, he is someone we can count
on in the future of genre filmmaking.
After the title card
quoting Neitzche, the action is about to start with a middle-aged man
named Ricardo (Jorge Mota), who is parking his car at the edge of the
wooded area, supposedly popular with the people planning to take their
own lives. He follows the signs that lead him to the part of the forest
designated for suicides, all completely fictional but all too familiar with the Aokigahara woods at the foothill of Mt. Fuji in Japan
portrayed in Gus Van Sant’s The Sea of Trees.
As soon as he finds
his spot, Ricardo realizes that he has company consisting of a “manic pixie goth girl” in her late
teens or early 20s named Carolina (Daniela
Love), who first mocks his chosen method (a knife), and then his
general unpreparedness for the act, like forgetting to bring his own
pen and paper for suicide note, which she readily lends him. The
sarcastic banter between the two of them continues and it seems like
that they are determined to save each other’s life, but still firm
about the decision to take their own.
At least it is the
case with Ricardo who cannot handle his life any more. One of his
daughters, Irene (Lila Lopes, seen only in flashbacks)
committed suicide herself a year ago and he feels threatened by the
constant nagging of his wife (Lígia Roque) and the cynical
attitude of his other daughter Filipa (Mafalada Banquart) to
whom Carolina reminds him of, regarding both her age and the treatment
she gives him. Also, it turns out to be that Carolina lacks the
courage to take the final step and that she is more of a morbidly
curious tourist in the forest, and more of the theoretitian than a suicide practitioner.
Or is she? After a
sharp turn somewhere around midpoint, the film takes the course away
from the casually dark comedic tone Lopes established early on, which is transforming more to the direction of something really sinister in the vein of
home invasion thrillers, stalking chillers and slasher horrors.
Smartly enough, he holds the cards regarding the motivational
explanation up until the end, amplifying the cynicism he plays with
right from the start.
He also avoids
bloodbath and cheap shocks, though the stalking parts are a bit too
much tongue in cheek, staying true to his darkly poetic realism
realized through Francisco Lobo’s stark black and white
cinematography, Ana Almeida’s meditative editing and Emanuel
Grácio’s sometimes prevalent music score, transforming the
budgetary limitations into an artistic statement. He gets a lot of
help from his actors, especially Love who plays her clichéd part
with a bit of dark hipster irony of her own. The brisk runtime of 71
minutes is also more than helpful to make The Forest of Lost Souls
an easy watch as well as a stylish and assured, albeit at moments
nonsensical debut.
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