TIFF 2026 | MOVIE REVIEW: “Memories of a Forest” Reminds Us To Live Our Lives Our Way
12/12 ForReel Score | 5/5 Stars
Isao Takahata’s Only Yesterday is a sad, nostalgic masterpiece focusing on memory and how we grow from the people we were as children with the main character visiting the countryside like she would as a child. Zach Braff’s dramedy Garden State features a young man returning home after a death in the family. It asks us to accept our past and allow ourselves to feel vulnerable in the lives we live today. As a part of TIFF’s Discovery program this year, Katharina Rabl’s Memories of a Forest carries similar sentiment. It is, however, completely unique in its execution. Its message is careful and meticulous with some tragic and fascinating layers. When you’ve made a life for yourself but feel it slipping because of your obligation to your family, what do you do? Do you return to what you’ve built, or do you get sucked back into your life at “home?”
Memories of a Forest follows a young woman named Frieda having to leave her life in Vienna after receiving news that her grandmother has passed away. Despite being on a tight deadline to finish her doctoral dissertation, she returns to her family in a small Austrian village where she learns that she has inherited her grandmother’s forest. Her first instinct is to sell the forest in order to help pay for her grandmother’s funeral, but her parents reject the idea immediately. Frieda’s insistence on staying and helping her family financially results in her procrastinating on her dissertation almost intentionally. Frieda returns to a world that is nostalgic to her. She’s changed and grown so much as a person, but everything around her hasn’t.
The film feels so powerful because of this sense of obligation to Frieda’s familial legacy remaining unfulfilled, and we see how that affects her and her life in Vienna as a result. Memories of a Forest became an instant favorite for me this year. It hits close to home if you’ve ever been torn between your aspirations and your family’s needs. There’s so much confusion present in so many of Frieda’s choices, but you know exactly why she makes them and that makes them strong. Rabl directs a quiet and passive Julia Windischbauer in a role that feels made for her. You can tell exactly what’s going through her head at all times. She’s clear and subtle and every face she makes speaks a thousand words. She’s easily the best star you could’ve gotten for this.
Given the film’s setting, you come to expect some beautiful scenery cutting through the uncertainty of every scene. That’s exactly what you get. Cinematographer Jacob Kohl captures beautiful landscapes and perspectives on nature that rival last year’s gorgeous Train Dreams. Showing us this forest with a deep history behind it while still telling the main story is a daunting task, but Kohl effortlessly weaves the two together. The forest is the story, and Frieda’s relation to it is the film’s thesis. Frieda has the idea to chop down some of the trees and sell them off in order to make some money. While this plan immediately falls apart as the forest is infected with bark beetles, she never stops respecting the space less. She almost has fun there, she feels safe. Kohl shoots all of this carefully and with a loving vision. We see life from the perspective of the trees, and how each person in those woods relates to the forest. His beautiful shots of this Austrian landscape paired with Peter Kutin’s calming score help you see how Frieda falls into this trap of wanting to stay home.
The central struggle of Memories of a Forest is what attached me to it so quickly. I found this internal relationship Frieda has with these two aspects of her life fascinating. They’re constantly at war with one another thematically, but Frieda’s life in Vienna takes the backseat for the majority of the film. It remains as a looming deadline, but it’s hardly at the forefront. That’s part of what Rabl does so well here. She creates this deep narrative with one of the most important aspects of it always in the back of your mind even though it’s hardly talked about. Frieda’s always thinking about it, so you are too. She can’t just push her entire life away for a world where she feels safe, because that’s not what her home or the forest is either. This all builds up to a powerful ending that feels like a strong and warranted culmination of all of Frieda’s experiences both in her life we don’t see and this stressful safety net she’s stuck in.
Memories of a Forest has already cemented itself as a favorite of not only the festival, but for me personally in general. It’s a careful deep dive into a woman at odds with herself, torn between following her dreams or respecting her family and their past. Katharina Rabl directs this engaging and thoughtful story that resonates heavily with anyone who’s ever experienced anything even remotely similar. You want to help the people who matter in your life, but you can’t get sucked into a cycle. It doesn’t necessarily ask you what’s important to you, forcing you to pick. It just tells you that whatever you do pick is okay, but you have to let it be your choice. You have to live your life to the fullest in your own way. Memories of a Forest is a must see, that will forever be memorable to me.