The Forest

Ashley (Anita Hegh) and her husband celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary by going to a restaurant. But Ashley has had a disturbing dream that she just can’t shake from her mind. Is the dream a sign that there’s something wrong with the marriage? It doesn’t help when her husband suddenly leaves the restaurant without giving Ashley any reason. Over the course of the evening Ashley tries to find out why

The Forest was shot in the South Bank area of Melbourne over fifteen nights, and is the first foray into the short feature field for director Jo Kennedy who began her career in the industry as an actor (her best known credit is for the 1980s musical Starstruck. It is a strong film, uncomfortable, yet intriguing. Ashley is obviously not a happy woman and for 50 minutes we try to come to grips with her thoughts.

The film concentrates on how Ashley is feeling, rather than giving us a broader picture of what it is that her husband is up to, and why. This story is about Ashley, not the couple, not the reasons, not the explanations – just the woman. Jo Kennedy has managed to evoke a powerful sense of despair throughout - the colors, the camera work, the dream flashbacks all signal a depressing disturbance in Ashley’s universe. Julia Blake as Ashley’s mother gives a superb performance as a woman who has pretty much been used and ignored by her husband for decades and lifts the film beyond the cliché it so easily could have been.

 

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