MUSIC BY EMANUEL GRACIO. CINEMATOGRAPHY BY FRANCISCO LOBO. STARRING DANIELA LOVE, JORGE MOTA, MAFALDA BANQUART, LIGIA ROQUE, LILIA LOPES, DEBORAH RIBEIRO AND TIAGO JACOME.
REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
In the world’s saddest place, two strangers meet. But one of them is happy to be there...
Arthouse meets Grindhouse in this Portuguese-language Portuguese slasher movie about a fictional forest somewhere between Portugal and Spain where people go to commit suicide.
That's right, it's a favourite spot for people to shuffle off their mortal coils, in which case the police should certainly know about it and patrol it regularly to prevent people from dying there. After all, suicide is still a crime, isn't it, not to mention the saddest of all tragedies.
But no, there's not a copper to be seen as two strangers intent on topping themselves, a middle-aged man and a young woman, meet by chance in the forest and decide to have a bit of an old philosophical chat about life and love and mortality before taking the big and somewhat irreversible step of killing themselves.
The man is Ricardo, a grey-haired family man who feels like he's let his family down and they'd be better off without him. He doesn't seem to see the irony inherent in killing himself and thereby letting his family down in the most permanent of ways.
There's always time to put things right, isn't there, but he doesn't see it that way. He's getting tired of trying. He is tired of trying. Well, I guess we all have days like that.
There doesn't seem to be any excuse at all for the young woman to be at the notorious suicide forest. Carolina is young, stunningly beautiful, well-read and intelligent. She even has tons of friends as well. In fact, she's bunking off from a hipster-ish music festival to be in the forest, sitting on a rock planning her suicide because she apparently thinks that she has nothing to live for.
Well, if a gorgeous knockout of a girl like that feels like her life is worth bubkes, what possible hope is there for the rest of us normals? God help us all, that's all I say.
Anyway, Ricardo and Carolina have a chat and a stroll around the beautiful quiet forest. It's the most stunningly beautiful forest I've ever seen in a film, and I've seen, like, a million horror films set in forests. We all have. But neither Ricardo nor Carolina is particularly surprised to find other people there too, dead people, people who've killed themselves and are just lying there.
See, this is what I meant about the cops patrolling the place. I mean, I certainly hope that some authority or other, the forestry board or whatever, goes around with a wheelbarrow and scoops up the stiffs every once in a while. It can't be legal to just leave them there for the birds to peck at, cluttering up the lovely woods with their inert sprawling carcasses.
In any case, Ricardo and Carolina wander around the forest and chew the fat and eventually, it emerges that one of them is actually serious about wanting to end it all. The other is not. The other, in fact, has a deeply disturbing and sinister reason for hanging around the suicide forest. You'll be nicely surprised at the way the cookie crumbles in this particular horror-thriller...
The film is beautifully-shot in black-and-white. The scenery, the forest and the suicide lake (yes, there's a suicide lake as well!), are gorgeous to look at. The suspense is what'll get you, though. It builds up almost from the get-go and it keeps building, building, building right to the very last frame.
You won't be able to guess the ending in a million years. From the minute you find out
who's doing what to whom, you'll be agonising over the why of the matter. Why is this happening? Why are they doing this? Is it for kicks or what? Why are they getting away with this? And so on and so forth. It made for a really exciting watch and my heart was kind of in my mouth by the end.
The film's been compared to arthouse-horror film A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT, in which a gorgeous female vampire terrorises the streets of Iran with her, um, vampiring and whatnot. I actually noticed that myself, having watched AGWHAAN myself a few months ago and loved it.
I'm using the film title's initials, by the way, for speed. I mean, to save time. Did you get that? Oh right, you got that. Um, good. That's good that you got that. (Although, in the time it's taken me to type all this explanatory hoo-ha, I actually could have written the name of the film in full a dozen times over!)
There's an excellent music score in THE FOREST OF LOST SOULS and some top-notch acting from the two leads, Ricardo and Carolina. Ricardo looks a lot like a guy I know in real-life, so it was a bit weird for me to see him in the suicide forest talking about offing himself. I wanted to shout at the screen: Don't do it, X, you have so much to live for...! What will your family think? And your hamsters need you, you're like a father to them!
Anyway, you horror buffs will be thrilled to hear that this super-atmospheric slasher horror film will be getting its UK premier at something called the TRIPLE SIX FESTIVAL later on this month. After that, no doubt it'll be no time at all before it's available to download digitally or buy on DVD. It's well worth the watch, anyway.
So, dare you enter THE FOREST OF LOST SOULS? Well, no-one's keeping tabs on the place so you certainly won't be disturbed or asked to leave or keep the noise down or anything else like that. You could even have a party there. Who's gonna stop you, the crows?
From what I've seen, you're even allowed to steal from the stiffs you find lying around the place and, well, if you've never tried a bit of the old necrophilia, now's your chance, haha.
Be careful, though. All is not as it seems in A FLORESTA DAS ALMAS PERDIDAS. You might be better off keeping your wits about you. Above all, don't trust anyone you meet there, dead or alive. Well, the dead are okay, they can't hurt you, as my old Mum is always saying. It's the living you need to watch out for...
New Portuguese art-house horror The Forest of Lost Souls (A Floresta das Almas Perdidas), gets its UK premier at Triple Six Festival later this month.
UK Premier
• 27 May 2017 - Triple Six Horror Film Festival (Manchester)
‘Fans of the art-house horror genre...will find much to like in Lopes’ feature film debut.’
Screen Anarchy
‘Lopes really stands out as a young filmmaker who is able to bring together several of his recognisable cinephilic references in order to bring to fruition a personal and carefully crafted debut project.’
Cineuropa
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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