Every year, dozens upon dozens of normal, everyday people travel to the stunning Aokigahara Forest at the base of Mount Fuji in northern Japan, wander off of the hiking path, and take their own lives. Also known as the “Suicide Forest” and the “Sea of Trees”, despite the people of Japan’s best efforts to diminish the rumors and dismiss the negative persona that their peculiar forest has cursed them with, the amount of tourists and suicidal patrons entering the forest’s confines seems not to wither, but to flourish. No one’s exactly sure why this geographical location as come to serve as the final resting place for so many lost souls from all over the world, but like a moth to a flame, this destination hooks vulnerable minds, and reels them in to its cold, quiet quarters.
In Jason Zada’s 2016 film The Forest, a young woman named Sara (Natalie Dormer) receives a phone call from her identical twin sister, Jess (also played by Natalie Dormer), who has become lost within the clutches of the Suicide Forest, and unable to find her way back to civilization again. Though she may know little to nothing about the forest itself, and though every person she comes across in this foreign land tells her to turn back and accept the fact that Jess is probably dead, Sara refuses to lose hope. Sara has always felt an unexplainable connection to her twin, a pulsating lifeline within her heart connected to her sibling that has yet to dim, and as long as that invisible thread between the two girls still holds strong, Sara won’t accept that her sister is truly gone. Therefore, Sara travels around the world, blindly plunging deep into the heart of the Aokigahara Forest, in an attempt to save her beloved sister, and finally bring her back home.
Though the story of Sara diving into this dangerous territory to retrieve her sister is a fabrication, the Suicide Forest that the film supposedly takes place in is a real, highly active place where hundreds of people have gone to kill themselves, and still more venture back every year. The forest is supposedly filled with evil demons, including the Yurei; vengeful spirits whose souls could not pass on to the afterworld because either their bodies were never found, so the proper burial rituals couldn’t be performed, or the fact that they ended their own life prevented them from peace in life after death.
“The lore of the forest is so creepy and it’s been so embedded in Japanese culture, we didn’t have to create much,” explains producer David S. Goyer with a sense of fascination behind his eyes. “That Ubasaute woman, the Yurei, the idea of there being iron deposits and ice caves, iron deposits in the ground, so phones and compasses don’t work, all of that exists. The ice cave exists, people get lost there all the time, the ropes and the strings that people leave so that the park rangers can identify their bodies, we didn’t make any of that up. So, that aspect of it really wrote itself”.
Although the Japanese lore that is deeply embedded in the history of the centuries old forest was fascinating enough to bring everyone involved in the project on board, its eerie reputation continued to represent both a pull for those filmmakers looking to step outside of the norm and attempt a unique project, while also remaining a focal point of terror and mysterious mysticism.
“Cell phones get jumbled up and compasses don’t work”, recalls star Taylor Kinney, who plays Aiden, Sara’s newfound journalist friend who helps guide her through the woods. “It’s just a surreal place and just to know the history, and the amount of people that have committed suicide there, it’s just staggering. It’s trippy”.
At first glance, it may look like one of the most breathtaking tourist spots a world traveller could ever hope to visit, but upon closer examination, it seems that there is a certain sense of wickedness laced in with the glorious trunks of this gorgeous scenery. While those who enter the forest with the contemplation of death on their minds are clearly teetering on the brink of sanity, and battling severe depression already, there’s talk of the forest pushing its inhabitants to commit suicide through persuasion, trickery, or just plain old starvation when people who want to leave lose their way and wind up dying accidentally in a remote area of the fourteen square mile span, too isolated to seek the help that they have finally admitted they need.
“It’s been called the most beautiful place to die”, comments director Jason Zada about the infamous forest, his voice heightened with curiosity and excitement. “In building the forest as sort of the bad guy in the film, and being this dark evil presence, we made the decision based on all of my research and everything that we’ve done, that the forest isn’t necessarily evil, it has the ability to show you kind of the sadness that’s inside of you, and to enhance that and to manipulate you. The forest doesn’t kill you, you kill yourself. It’s the idea that there’s a place that could show you the worst things about your life. I think people are attracted to it, the people that have that darkness inside of them, that the forest just uses it and enhances it”.
Sara certainly falls prey to the power of the forest’s design, as she embarks on her journey to find her sister, hidden somewhere in the tall trees, and instead, finds ghostly noises in the night, paranoid delusions of her new friend Aiden double crossing her, and full on hallucinations of strangers who may be alive, or may have already crossed the threshold into the land of the undead.
To accurately display such a exasperated yet believable emotionally traumatized state, and, not to mention, while at the same time, basically putting on a one woman show, director Zada would need a very talented actress that could handle the challenge. He found the attributes he sought in Game of Thrones regular Natalie Dormer. “To sort of psychologically unravel on film is not easy, and then to play two different people is not easy, and then to play in basically every single frame of the film, we needed an actress that can pull off that level of craftsmanship, and just really wanted to put herself out there for the ride”. Needless to say, Zada was happy with the results. “I’ve worked with a lot of people, and I’d say she really has something about here where she just really pops off the screen, and that her ability to sort of be fearless in some of the decisions that she makes was really great”.
To understand Sara and Jess’ mental states as they battle the forces of darkness in today’s world, one must go back to when these twins were just little girls, and they experienced a horrifying event that would change their lives forever. Both of their parents died at an early age, leaving their grandmother to raise them, and forever casting a shadow over their once happy lives. While Jess chooses to bask in her sorrows, constantly putting her connection to the dark side on full display, Sara opts for a more controlled, positive outlook on life. However, as time passes on, Sara comes to realize that maybe she isn’t quite dealing with her inner demons in a healthy manner, but rather, ignoring her issues altogether in a fit of denial.
“I found it really fascinating that they’re just these two girls that have suffered this profound trauma early in their lives, and have almost gone in textbook polar opposite ways in how they deal with it,” interprets star Natalie Dormer. “One being wild and very connected with the darkness in her life, and the other being very repressed, overachiever, sort of control freak really, in order to feel safe”. Added Dormer, “I think there’s elements of both of the girls in me”.
Bearing a painful past an an unsure future, the sisters in this film are relatable in large part due to the damage inside of them that’s pushed to the surface, and tested to the breaking point. Every person in the world deals with some kind of inner turmoil, but the notion that the demons that these girls are carrying around on the inside could grow and manifest in the form of ancient spirits, and present themselves in the physical world as Yurei and other fearful presences, in an already frightening and unknown land, is both accessible to audiences, and petrifying in its own right.
Director Zada recalls a very specific story during his research period when connected the two elements together. “When we were in Japan, when I actually saw the forest and had a guide take us in, at the very end, like the sun was going down and we were leaving, he asked us, ‘Can I rub salt on your back and you rub salt on my back?’ And I said, ‘That’s a very odd request, but sure’, and I asked him why, and he said, ‘Well, we believe that when you go to a place like this, that the Yurei will cling to your back, and they’ll go home with you, and they’ll haunt you at your house. So, by rubbing salt on your back, you get rid of them’. So, it’s just like this incredibly strange image that stuck in my head that people could be carrying around Yureis with them”.
“We all carry demons and repressed past regrets and baggage that we all have” relates Dormer, “and that idea of when you get put in a situation where you’re forced to deal with that, I just found the suspense-thriller elements a real thinking person’s horror movie. I thought the human psychological elements were fascinating”.
The deeper Sara ventures into the Suicide Forest, the further she slips into insanity, getting just as lost in the thicket of the evergreen trees as she is in the dark corners of her mind. This is one trip she may never come back from.
Discover what happens to Sara and her sister Jess when they fall under the thrall of the Sea of Trees early next year. The Forest hits theaters on January 8th, 2016.
