The Silent Forest is inspired by true events I know nothing about, so I don’t know how much is true and not true in The Silent Forest. But from what I have read, it’s unbelievable that it took so long before the school’s secret was revealed.
A teenage boy who is deaf starts at a new school for deaf students where he experiences things that the school tries to hide.
There have been made many movies about schools and sexual abuse. What’s interesting about The Silent Forest is that it’s the students who are behind the sexual abuse, so that feels like a new angle. But there is something more behind the sexual abuse, and you feel that there is something wrong with the leader of the students who commit the sexual abuse. Is he the main villain in the movie?
This isn’t a perfect movie. I was a little disappointed as I didn’t buy everything that was said and done. There is too much passivity in The Silent Forest. There’s a small group of students that commits sexual abuse. There is no one of the students who tells the media, parents, or the police when the school does nothing?
If you read about what happened in reality, it seems as if several teachers were behind the sexual abuse. While in the movie, the focus is more on the students and what they do to each other. And it works well when the truth comes out, especially when we learn the truth about what happened in the past and what started it all.
The deaf students cannot trust the adults, especially the staff at the school. It’s difficult to put yourself in the situation of the students. But that none of them contacted other people than the staff at the school feels unreal to me. There are things in the movie that are difficult to understand because there were also older students here. They have to understand that it’s not useful to contact the teachers at this school. Or?
What’s interesting is when we see what happened in the past, and how this disease has spread to some of the students. This is where the heart and message of the movie lie.
Unfortunately, I had to laugh when we see how some of the students are portrayed early in the movie. They behave like some wild cavemen. When they rape girls, they tell us they play games with them! They are so broken! They are fucking crazy! No one outside the school feels that there is anything wrong with their behavior? What about their parents? There are things here that I wish the movie could dig deeper into.
There is also a silly scene when the protagonist sucks on something to prevent the girl he’s protecting from being raped, or played with, as the rape boys say so nicely. Seriously! This was a scene that made me lose all respect for the protagonist.
There are several things that I felt I wanted an answer to when the end credits appeared on the screen. We just see one line of text, and that’s all! For those of us who know nothing about what happened to the staff at the school, it’s like getting a slap in the face. They should lock up the principal and several others behind bars for the rest of their lives. Now I was kind. They don’t deserve to live! You throw the garbage away. You turn off the lights for them. It’s the best for them and humanity. Fuck them! They are as guilty as the persons who were behind the sexual abuse!