Der Wald vor lauter Bäumen

The first few minutes of the film, i couldn't get over the 30fps video hand-held format. I was thinking, "are they crazy? at least shoot 24p..." But soon enough, the story sucked me into Melanie's plight settling into a new environment, struggling with loneliness, desperation, and upholding her facade of "everything is fine," when everyone knows that she is physically and emotionally deteriorating. I thought that the acting was superb. Not once did I feel like the actors were acting, but the video format and the emotions elicited conveyed a painful sense of realism.

This film touches upon a universal struggle of the human condition in such a realistic, frustrating, and true-to-life approach. Her inner tug of war is something that all of us have experienced at one point or another to some degree of severity.

It is truly a touching story.

I haven't felt such pity, frustration, empathy, and genuine identification with the protagonist in a long time.

Find this film and go see it.

Melanie's problem isn't that she's lonely and lacks social skills, or that other people refuse to reach out and help her; it's that she's a sociopath. Here's the dictionary definition of a sociopath: "A person with an antisocial personality disorder, manifested in aggressive, perverted, criminal, or amoral behavior without empathy or remorse."

Melanie lies constantly; she almost never tells the truth even when there's no good reason not to, as when asked what her plans are for the evening or the holidays.

She aggressively invades other people's lives with no sense of interpersonal boundaries, of other people's right to live their own lives without her. She invades social gatherings to which she has been told she is not invited, and she shuns those to which she HAS been invited. She stalks, spies, listens outside doors and windows, pushes her way into other people's houses.

She never sees anything wrong in her OWN behavior - the problem is always somebody else's failure to give her what she needs. She is entirely consumed by her own needs and completely blind to anyone else's needs. She has no business teaching children. She needs intensive psychiatric treatment.

She does NOT need for other people to be more compassionate toward her. They ARE compassionate, but she either rejects them because she finds them unattractive (Thorsten) or pursues them and violates their privacy so aggressively (Tina) that she kills their compassion.

None of these are signs of a normal but shy person, or of a person who simply hasn't had much practice socializing with other people. These are signs of a person with a serious, deep-rooted and potentially dangerous personality disorder. The fact that even her own mother doesn't want to talk to her shows that her behavior problems did NOT suddenly begin when she moved to Karlsruhe and her new job.

She needs a good shrink, not friends. In her present state, she's incapable of friendship or any other normal personal relationship.

This is a very good movie, because I and nearly every other reviewer - even those who give the movie bad ratings - relate to Melanie as if she is a real person. Like it or not, this movie does what movies are supposed to do: create a world which the viewer experiences as real.

I thought this film was very well made given what was probably a very small budget. The acting was very fine, and the story was painfully realistic in many ways. I got it from the local library because it was about a young teacher. My wife teaches so I thought she might like it. Fortunately I watched it on my own first, and decided that she would probably find it very disturbing because of the realities depicted, but frustrating because of the inability of the young teacher to do what was necessary to help herself.

I found myself very moved by the young teacher, and had the feeling that I'd like to help her through her difficulties...difficulties revealed to the viewer, but ones she was unwilling to admit or express to those who might have helped her in the film.

Maren Ade's debut. I wasn't expecting too much out of this one, since it doesn't have much of a reputation and I didn't really like Ade's sophomore feature, Everyone Else. I did like her third film, Toni Erdmann, but I kind of figured that was a major step forward for her. To my surprise, I found Forest for the Trees to be her best work so far. Shot on video, this is the story of a lonely, young teacher (Eva Löbau). She isn't too good at her new job, and she's not too good at life outside of school, either. Her 9th grade students walk all over her and the only friendship she can strike up is an awkward one with her neighbor. Löbau's neediness is exacerbated by work stress, and her friend soon grows annoyed with her. As someone who dipped his toes into teaching, I felt like this would have been my experience and, even though I spent a lot of time learning how to do it, I abruptly decided it was not for me. This situation is one of my nightmares, and I felt every painful moment of this film like a needle in my flesh. The film might have seemed perfect to me if not for the sort of cheap, magical realism ending. It's unpleasant, but truthful. Outstanding.

This is certainly an interesting film. I discovered this film by accident at my local blockbuster store.At first as another viewer had mentioned found it difficult to get used to the camera format at first. The movie experience was almost like getting sucked into a novel possibly a modern day Camus perhaps.The story also perhaps was focusing on the lack of a social support structure in modern societies. The alienation and loneliness is realized through the character of Melanie in depth. The ending was open to interpretation by the viewer and i am guessing that she is moving on from her teaching position to one which might be more fulfilling. Overall a good job.