User Reviews

Melanie is, simply and unalterably, who she is and has always been. She cannot effectively assert herself. She cannot control other people's impression of her. She cannot draw people close to her, or even get them on her side. This applies to her out-of-view family (we know them only from overhearing her end of unrewarding telephone conversations with them), her students, her staff peers and her neighbors and would-be friends.

Emotional isolation has never felt so completely real on film. Nothing is over-dramatized. No scenery chewing here, Thank God. No dishonest cutaways to a colorful fantasy world inside the main character's head. No Hollywood situations or developments. What happens throughout feels inevitable, and thus real.

I was turned off, in the beginning, by the shot-on-video character of this film, because by default it seemed to mean a dispensing with classic film language, and a less articulate camera. --And there are times I thought a score would have helped. But eventually the deliberately flattened style (call it Bressonian) grew on me. I realized the film wasn't an over-hyped thriller (as the video box more or less lead me to believe) that needed or invited a lot of flash style in the telling. Directness is the best decision the makers could have made in a vehicle built to carry emotional truth.

I recommend this film for people who want something emotionally naked, at times painful to watch, with a psychological preoccupation. If you look at Melanie and see some piece of yourself in real life, this film will probably bring you down. On the other hand, it might also broaden your view of yourself and the world, and impress you again with the fact that no one is weird; people simply are.

(2003) The Forest for the Trees/ Der Wald vor lauter Bäumen (In German with English subtitles) PSYCHOLOGICAL DRAMA

Written and directed by Maren Ade starring Eva Löbau as Melanie Proeschle moving into a small town in Germany as a teacher, and attempts to adapt by making a new friend with her neighbor, Tina (Daniela Holtz). At this point viewers hardly know anything about her except that she very slowly becomes the victim of her own rudeness and consideration. As other people including her neighbor and her peers(teachers) attempt to communicate with her, she in return would either become dismissive or ignore that person all together.

I or anyone at one point in time, can relate to her situation one way or another, as it can be a diagnosis of an anti-social personality disorder in a non violent manner, that her only crime is to be inconsiderate. For instance, there is a scene where she agrees to have a meal with another male teacher, and on the very next day, she never even bother to show up. And that in return can automatically push that person away even further.

The reason I am giving the only passable rating is because although it is well made, it's ends on an ambiguous note with zero resolution. Pointing out that there are programs for this, just like there are programs for alcoholism, drugs and trauma. That because the setting takes place in Germany that it may be making a statement, that because it is a country that is no different than anywhere else that it may be perhaps making a cry for help, that there should be an outreach program so that people are able to communicate and to be considerate with one another better. I went into this movie by looking at the poster without any notion about what it's about. And after I finished watching it, I went back to thinking about the poster itself again, beginning to realize that the poster is a fitting one as she has her back on anyone looking at it.

I watched the movie at a local festival for foreign films and it was obvious that the audience had a hard time to understand the movie or to sympathize with Melanie, the central character of the film. The average American just has a hard time to understand that getting rid of a few bags of trash may become an almost insurmountable problem, that finding new friends among your neighbors or colleagues at work can be so difficult. Of course, our heroine makes one mistake after another, but shouldn't somebody around her see how lonely she is? Ridiculously, she brings home-warming presents to people in her apartment building when she moves in. Doesn't anybody see this as a cry for help? Despite her best intentions, Melanie fails miserably as schoolteacher - why doesn't anyone of her colleagues or the principal rush in to help? The only other young teacher at the school, a guy, senses that she is in trouble, but she can't get herself to open up to him. Melanie tries to win the friendship of the owner of a fashion boutique by buying expensive clothing that she probably can't afford, helps her with cleaning up her apartment, only to get coldly rejected when due to a misunderstanding she dis-invites the boutique owner's boyfriend. Eva Lobau does a fantastic job playing the young schoolteacher who doesn't seem to fit in.

This will contain slight spoilers...

This wasn't an awful movie...but I don't think it's a wonderful look at the human condition either.

I'd like to like Melanie- but this woman is beyond all help. It's one thing to be a bit shy or awkward in trying to find new friends, settle into a new job, and that sort of thing. But, when you get to the point where you're nearly stalking a neighbor who clearly doesn't want to be your friend- how can most of us relate to that? How can I care or even get anywhere near sympathizing with a character that I want to reach through the screen and choke? I mean, wow- she's so utterly pathetic it's not even sad...it's beyond the point of it being sad.

In the end- not much happens. We see the most mundane aspects of her day. She folds some clothes and sits in her apartment. She's in class, simply refusing to get any of these brats in line. She's back at her apartment again sitting at a desk. It's just void of a lot of action. Which is fine, if we were getting a realistic character storyline here, but as I've said, I don't think she's all too realistic. I don't know that I've personally met anyone this frustratingly sad and pathetic. And her refusal to tell anyone the truth about how bad things are going. I didn't get it. She's so pathetic, she'll stalk her neighbor, but she suddenly has too much pride to be nice to the one co-worker who is trying to be friends with her? Too full of pride to even be honest with her own mother as to the troubles she's having? And that ending- Call me stupid, but I just didn't get it. She loses it and then sits in the back of her car as it drives itself? Over my head, I guess, but I wasn't sure what the message was.

The cheap quality to the video didn't help this film either. It looked to be shot on a midrange home camera of sorts. Maybe if the main character wasn't so unlikeable for her sheer lack of ANY social skills, the film would have overcome the limitation in video quality, but I don't the story did that. Being socially awkward or downright inept doesn't always turn you off from a character- outright stalking, in my view, does. Being a weirdo makes it hard to sympathize with you, and much harder to feel sorry for you.

(Note: Brief plot description ahead that could be seen as a spoiler)

Shot on DV by student filmmakers, this harrowing, heartbreaking story of a socially isolated young schoolteacher's gradual breakdown has an amazing, complex central performance, as well as strong supporting work, and intelligent writing.

A major case of substance triumphing over form, lack of money, and lack of experience. Far more thought provoking and incisive than about 99% of what is being made currently. A film that takes you into the heart of loneliness and isolation. Not easy or fun to watch, but very rewarding

I think that this movie would have gotten the highest rating from me if it wasn't so painful to watch after moving to San Diego from Portland two years ago and only finally feeling that I have a real friend locally a month ago. However, I voted it as high as I did because it really sucks you into the movie. The reason it was so painful is that as a person with undiagnosed Asperger's, but one who recognizes most of the symptoms of social alienation and ineptness within myself, and I see the main character Melanie having a psychological condition of something like that and can see myself falling into her trap, if I let myself.

One viewer suggested she is a sociopath while railing against people like her for being stalkerish. However, beyond empathy - I feel nothing but sympathy for Melanie and her obviously malformed coping mechanisms for extreme isolation which I could see leading one to eventually go down that road in desperation. She and the Science Teacher coworker would have made a good match if only he had not come on so strong (like she does later with her "friend") and she would have seen that he was actually a good person and if she simply looked beyond his baldness and personality flaws. However, that is the problem with being socially inept, it is almost harder to be friends with other socially inept people who are most likely to sympathize with you. The fact she has no one to go to on break, friends or family, indicates she has always been very hard to get along with for any person, including her parents. However, it is disappointing to see no one tries too hard to really get to know or intervene and in the end she likewise never really opens up, escapes and takes the easy way out, a thought I frequently have to fight against when things seem to be too tough, instead of facing her problems in an honest manner.

I would say this is a very good film for someone who wants to understand how a un-neurotypical mind works but it might be a little too much for those un-neurotypicals who struggle like this every day to some degree, unless they can learn something from it without becoming too depressed from watching their own struggles on screen. It really is a perfect storm of malformed psychological intensity causing maximum damage in the protagonist's life.

Regardless, it made me think about things like no other film ever has and viewing it resulted in my first film review so that I could understand the film and my reactions to it better.

Since the two women live in such close proximity to each other, Tina(Daniela Holtz) really has no choice but to invite the schoolteacher over for her birthday shindig. Tina knows from previous visits to Melanie's place that the comings and goings of her apartment can be easily surveyed from a picture window. Although Tina is leery about Melanie's clinginess and persistent attempts to ingratiate herself in the shop girl's social circle, she doesn't want to hurt the woman's feelings.

In a new town with a new job and new apartment, Melanie Proschle(Eva Loebau) assumes that it'll just be a matter of time before she makes new friends. But in spite of Melanie's best efforts, her students and colleagues reject her, as "Der Wald vor lauter Baumen" offers us a harrowing glimpse of a young woman's mystifying inability to connect with other people. Shot on high-def digital video, the camera is unforgiving in catching every setback that registers on Melanie's face with unerring clarity. Her innovative teaching methods, which she trumpeted at a small faculty luncheon with naive impudence, fails to reach the hearts and minds of both her fifth and nine grade students, who challenge the inexperienced teacher's authority every chance they get. The jagged film ably captures the insanity of trying to teach non-compliant children through the beleaguered teacher's reaction shots to the schoolhouse cacophony. Melanie looks as if she's afraid that the unruly students will eat her alive. Not only do the students hate the young educator, but the teachers as well, with the exception of Thorsten(Jan Neumann), who preys on her needs for a confidant's shoulder that she can depend on for a good cry, or lean. Watching this balding science teacher in action is a study of how the workplace is like a singles bar without the alcohol and smoking. Out of desperation, Melanie eventually goes on a lunch date with Thorsten, in spite of the fact that she normally takes her breaks in a storage closet to avoid him during school hours.

While her professional life lays in shambles, Melanie counts too heavily on Tina for companionship, who might of been a model before she opened up her own boutique. The schoolteacher first laid eyes on Tina in her flat, bawling her eyes out after an animated conversation on the phone. Later on, when the schoolteacher sees Tina on her cigarette break at work, she doesn't let on that they're neighbors. Melanie is every bit as calculating as her colleague Thorsten in this respect; she knows that the right time to insinuate yourself in somebody's life is when the person is at their most vulnerable. If Tina wasn't distracted by her relationship problems, she'd be more cognizant to Melanie's orchestration of their first meeting, and be leery about her ensuing intrusiveness and sense of entitlement to discuss the boyfriend as if they were longtime intimates. Under normal circumstances, Tina probably wouldn't give Melanie the time of day. They simply don't travel in the same social circles. "Der Wald vor lauter Baumen" is almost unbearable to watch whenever Melanie violates the parameters that Tina set out for their commingling, by glomming onto her jet-set friends at private get-togethers that she crashes uninvited. Tina and Melanie's coupling bears more than a passing resemblance to the model/non-model friendship in "Veronica", the celebrated novel by Mary Gaitskill about a high-fashion model named Allison who befriends the titular character, an older, less glamorous woman, with AIDS. Tina may like Melanie, but she's ashamed of her. She's her dirty little secret.

With great economy and precision, "Der Wald vor lauter Baumen" shows us to what lengths a human being will go to make contact with another human being.

"Der Wald vor lauter Bäumen" or "The Forest for the Trees" is a German movie from 2003, so it will have its 15th anniversary soon. The title refers to a German play on words and I am not entirely sure how the English title gives the meaning too. The writer and director is Maren Ade and she is receiving a great deal of attention right now for "Toni Erdmann", but her work here shows that she also has made a couple semi-famous films earlier in her career. As most works from her, there is always a relatively young (around the age of 30) female character in the center of the story (just like "Alle anderen") and this one is played by Eva Löbau here. Löbau is fairly known here in Germany (at least the face) and she also worked with Quentin Tarantino for example already. For Ade, it was her first work as a director in terms of full feature length films, so it's probably not too surprising that the cast (except lead actress) is relatively unknown and honestly, Löbau is also not really a great star or talent, just physically very fitting for a certain type of characters like this one here maybe too.

She plays a teacher who comes to the city and the movie is basically about her struggles to adapt to the new environment and also cope with all the fairly difficult kids in her new class. Put in some notes from the private life of the character and you basically have exactly what you could expect here. This is what it is. I myself, however, was never really well-entertained while watching. I never had the impression that the character(s) or story about her/them actually warranted a movie. I am not criticizing that nothing spectacular happens and the film went for bleak realism obviously and that's perfectly fine for sure. But if you do, then you also need to make sure to deliver in terms of character development and story-telling and there were far from enough moments when this was true. Apart from that, I also found the acting underwhelming overall. I can say I am glad the film runs for 80 minutes only and that's fine because there's no need for a rookie filmmaker like Ade to go for something overlong, but even at this relatively low run time it dragged on a couple occasions. Thumbs down from me. Not recommended and Ade clearly stepped her game up in the years that followed afterward.