{"id":296779,"date":"2026-02-22T15:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T15:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/296779\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T15:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T15:10:11","slug":"a-beguiling-mountain-retreat-of-a-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/296779\/","title":{"rendered":"A Beguiling Mountain Retreat of a Movie"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThere are no luxuries and only the most essential comforts on offer at the remote Alpine refuge where \u201cForest High<\/a>\u201d is set: Hot water runs just a couple of hours a day, the soup served for dinner is thin and blandly nourishing, and don\u2019t ask where to charge your phone, because you\u2019ll be met with a polite but firm refusal. It\u2019s a place for passing hikers to rest, not to vacation \u2014 though for the women who run the place, across different seasons and weathers, it\u2019s somewhere to stay and hit pause on life, and perhaps to finally hear yourself in the silence. Manon Coubia<\/a>\u2018s gorgeous, whispering first feature is therefore not a film of major dramatic incidents and revelations, though its payoff is clear and cleansing as a mountain spring.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cForest High\u201d is inspired by Coubia\u2019s own ten years of experience as a warden at a mountain refuge: The Alpine landscape so ravishingly explored here has previously been integral to her short film work, notably the 2016 Locarno winner \u201cThe Fullness of Time.\u201d Though a lightly scripted narrative is woven through proceedings here \u2014 particularly in its third and final section, an intimate two-hander \u2014 the film is chiefly attuned with documentary-like specificity to environmental details and textures. <\/p>\n

\n\tShot over four seasons of real-life activity at a working refuge, with Coubia\u2019s actors interacting with actual hikers passing through the place, it\u2019s a bracing and singular work: While its triptych structure and shifting focus on different shapes and stages of female identity most easily invite comparisons with Kelly Reichardt\u2019s \u201cCertain Women,\u201d there\u2019s nothing quite like it in the arthouse market. <\/p>\n

\n\tSpecialist distributors may be emboldened by the film\u2019s special jury mention following its premiere in Berlin\u2019s Perspectives competition for first features. (Rai Cinema International Distribution is handling sales.) Despite its modesty of scale, the deliberate, spell-casting rhythm and sensory density of \u201cForest High\u201d demand theatrical exhibition, as do its ruggedly spectacular mountainscapes, shot on tactile 16mm film by DP Robin Fresson \u2014 it\u2019s hard to imagine the film having quite the same strangely enveloping quality on streaming platforms.<\/p>\n

\n\tSet in the crisp first flush of spring, the film\u2019s opening third is centered on Anna (Salom\u00e9 Richard, star of Coubia\u2019s 2023 short \u201cFull Night\u201d), a thirtysomething local who has done several stints at the refuge, and to whom this breathtaking region is merely home. With that familiarity has come a certain restlessness: She intends for this to be her last season doing the job, though a light dalliance with handsome traveling birdwatcher Antoine (Arthur Marbaix) keeps things interesting. He\u2019s on the lookout for the capercaillie, a rare kind of grouse rapidly disappearing from the region, and a quasi-mythical motif running through the film \u2014 a symbol of a natural but increasingly threatened way of life.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith summer comes the older, more careworn H\u00e9l\u00e8ne (Aur\u00e9lia Petit) to take over the job in brisk, practised fashion learned from decades of temporary menial work. But there\u2019s pleasure in it too. This is the shelter\u2019s busiest season, making for the film\u2019s most vibrant, chattering section, and H\u00e9l\u00e8ne adapts well to the rhythm and volume of whatever company rolls in, while occasionally retreating to the woods for some respite. Coubia\u2019s dramatic emphases are generally unexpected \u2014 the mystery of what happened to one booked-in family of hikers that never shows up amid a heavy rainstorm is left hanging \u2014 while lower-stakes scenes are followed through to rewarding, observational conclusions. One lovely sequence sees an outdoor lunch at the lodge turn into an impromptu dance party with a live musician singing some cheerfully inauthentic bossa nova.<\/p>\n

\n\tFinally, as the shelter empties out for winter, outsider Suzanne (Anne Cousens) arrives to mind it in the off-season. Like H\u00e9l\u00e8ne, she\u2019s in her fifties, though her background is very different: Once a well-to-do wife and mother, now single and empty-nested, she\u2019s living life on her own terms for the first time. The alone-but-not-loneliness afforded by the small, snow-licked hut is thus exactly what she\u2019s after: As she contentedly tends the fireplace, reads her book and snuggles into bed with her puffer coat on, \u201cForest High\u201d emerges as a kind of anti-\u201cShining,\u201d a testament to the healing benefits of female solitude. It can\u2019t last, of course, as a single male guest turns up at the shelter \u2014 a young army deserter, in his own way calmly adrift in life \u2014 but a gentle, reserved connection sparks between them.<\/p>\n

\n\tAll the while, \u201cForest High\u201d feels happily haunted by the souls of those who have passed through its humble timber location, which remains unchanging and indifferent to modern developments and pressures in the lives escaped down below. Assisted by the serene control of Fresson\u2019s camera, the patience and invisible economy of Th\u00e9ophile Gay-Mazas\u2019s editing and the glassy, wind-brushed echoes of Fran\u00e7ois Chamaraux\u2019s score, the assured light touch of Coubia\u2019s filmmaking maintains an atmosphere of tranquil but unromanticized remove from the world \u2014 as if there\u2019s just an extra hour or two in the day, and no great need to fill the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are no luxuries and only the most essential comforts on offer at the remote Alpine refuge where…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[33699,156,163584,163585,409,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-296779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-berlin-film-festival","tag-entertainment","tag-forest-high","tag-manon-coubia","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}