A Future Growing From the Past

MOVIE REVIEWS
Memories of a Forest (Erinnerungen eines Waldes)
 -     

Genre: Drama
Year Released: 2026
Runtime: 1h 31m
Director: Katharina Rabl
Writers: Katharina Rabl, Karla Cristóbal
Cast: Julia Windischbauer, Johanna Orsini, Dominik Warta, Lukas Walcher, Linde Prelog, Sophia Burtscher
Where to Watch: shown at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival

RAVING REVIEW: There’s nothing glamorous about inheriting a giant range of forest, especially when you have no idea what you’re supposed to do with it. For Frieda, it initially looks less like a gift and more like another problem keeping her from the life she’s been working toward. MEMORIES OF A FOREST takes that situation and uses it to look at family obligation, money, and how easily one generation’s sacrifices can become the next generation’s responsibility.

Frieda, played by Julia Windischbauer, is close to finishing her doctoral dissertation and potentially landing a position at the University of Vienna when her grandmother dies. She returns to the rural Austrian village where she grew up expecting to attend the funeral and get back to her own life. Instead, she learns that her grandmother left her a large section of forest, and leaving suddenly becomes far harder than just coming back.

Money makes the decision even more complicated. Frieda’s parents are struggling financially, so selling the land seems like the obvious answer, at least to Frieda. Her mother, Johanna, sees it differently, and the disagreement quickly brings years of resentment and expectations to the surface without either woman needing to yell about everything that has gone wrong between them. That’s where Julia Windischbauer and Johanna Orsini shine. Frieda and Johanna clearly care about each other, but they also know exactly where to push to make the other feel guilty. Orsini keeps Johanna from becoming the controlling mother standing between Frieda and freedom. At the same time, Windischbauer makes it easy to understand why Frieda feels herself slipping back into a version of life she thought she had already escaped.

The grandmother’s forest eventually becomes more than something that can be sold for cash. It represents work done decades earlier with the expectation that somebody in the future would benefit from it, except the future isn’t the one anyone planned for. Bark beetles have damaged the trees, the timber's value has fallen, and an inheritance meant to provide security has become another responsibility that requires money, labor, and time.

Director/co-writer Katharina Rabl gets plenty out of the physical work involved. Cutting trees, machinery, and hauling timber aren’t treated as picturesque pieces of country life, and the sawmill sequences are especially effective at stripping away any idealistic ideas about the forest. Trees become measurements, grades, stacks, and money, connecting Frieda’s problem to an economic reality that doesn’t care about the memories attached to the land.

Rabl came to fiction after working extensively in documentary, and you can feel that observation in the way she approaches the village and even everyday life. MEMORIES OF A FOREST spends time watching people work and letting the surroundings exist without constantly turning them into moments of exposition. The countryside can be beautiful, but living there requires labor, and the movie never conflates the two.

At times, though, that approach becomes a little too patient. There are stretches where Frieda’s conflict is clear, but the story keeps circling the same things without changing them. At 91 minutes, the movie isn’t long, yet parts of the middle act feel longer than they should because Frieda spends so much time suspended between the same two things.

The forest metaphor can also become more obvious than it initially appears. Trees planted by an earlier generation, damaged by changing conditions and left for someone else to deal with, parallel the expectations passed down through Frieda’s family. Once the connection is clear, MEMORIES OF A FOREST occasionally keeps underlining it when the relationships themselves are already capable of carrying the idea. That becomes especially noticeable when the history of the women in Frieda’s family comes into focus. Her grandmother sacrificed; Johanna built her life around all of this and family, and Frieda is now approaching a point where she could abandon her own ambitions to fulfill another obligation.

The men in Frieda’s life are generally less developed. Dominik Warta gives her father, Alexander, enough personality to feel like part of the family, not just something in the farmhouse. The mother-daughter relationship understandably gets far more attention. Lukas Walcher’s Friedrich has a comfortable history with Frieda that gives her another connection to the place, though he never becomes as interesting as the family tensions surrounding her. That narrower focus makes sense considering what Rabl is exploring, but it also contributes to the feeling that some characters exist mainly to pull Frieda in one direction or another. I wanted a little more disorder outside that conflict. Families rarely align themselves this well around one person’s decision, even when that decision has consequences for everyone.

MEMORIES OF A FOREST is more interesting when it gets away from the question of whether Frieda should stay or leave and considers whether either choice can really separate her from where she came from. Moving away doesn’t erase her family, and keeping the forest wouldn’t automatically mean surrendering the life she built elsewhere. The harder question is which parts of an inheritance deserve to be preserved and which should be allowed to end. That has an environmental side, too. Without turning itself into a lecture about climate or agriculture, the movie recognizes something painfully simple. People can spend their entire lives preparing a better future for their children and still have no control over the world those children eventually inherit.

The film has more depth than its family drama alone. Frieda isn’t simply choosing between independence and noble sacrifice, because neither option is presented that cleanly. Selling the forest solves some problems but ends something her grandmother spent years building, and keeping it honors that effort, though it may also push her to repeat the same cycle of sacrifice that created the conflict in the first place.

I appreciated that MEMORIES OF A FOREST doesn’t turn Johanna into an obstacle that Frieda has to defeat. There are moments when her expectations are frustrating, but they come from a lifetime in which duty wasn’t something she was encouraged to question. Frieda has choices her mother and grandmother either didn’t have or never believed they had, and having those choices doesn’t make them any easier to use.

The movie is surprisingly thoughtful about all of this, sometimes to the point where its carefulness becomes its biggest limitation. I wanted a little more emotional release and a little less distance, particularly after spending so much time inside a family defined by everything they haven’t said to each other. Windischbauer and Orsini give the story enough feeling to keep it from feeling cold, but I never connected with Frieda’s dilemma as strongly as I expected.

MEMORIES OF A FOREST is a good movie with a strong lead performance and a genuinely interesting idea about the things families leave behind. Rabl understands that inheritance isn’t just property and that breaking a generational pattern can feel frighteningly close to betraying the people who came before you. I just wish the movie had trusted those ideas enough to loosen its grip on them and let the characters carry a little more of the weight themselves.

Please visit https://linktr.ee/overlyhonestr for more reviews.

You can follow me on Letterboxd, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. You can also find my social media accounts on most platforms by searching for 'Overly Honest Reviews'.

I’m always happy to hear from my readers; please don't hesitate to say hello or send me any questions about movies.

[photo courtesy of LEYKAUF FILM, MISCHIEF FILMS]

DISCLAIMER:
At Overly Honest Movie Reviews, we value honesty and transparency. Occasionally, we receive complimentary items for review, including DVDs, Blu-rays, CDs, Vinyl Records, Books, and more. We assure you that these arrangements do not influence our reviews, as we are committed to unbiased, sincere evaluations. We aim to help you make informed entertainment choices regardless of our relationship with distributors or producers.

Amazon Affiliate Links:
This site also contains Amazon affiliate links. If you purchase through these links, we may receive a commission. This affiliate arrangement does not affect our commitment to honest reviews and helps support our site. We appreciate your trust and support as you navigate these links.