In response to a humiliating incident at school, three teenagers develop increasingly bizarre, mutually masochistic bonding rituals in Jannis Lenz's impressively taut and eerie debut.
Plus IconJessica Kiang
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Courtesy of Zeitgeist Filmproduktion, Venice Film Festival The difficult teenage years are sometimes characterized as a wasteland, but more resemble a forest for the interdependent trio at the sinking heart of Jannis Lenz‘s “Oasis,” the German-born, Austrian-trained filmmaker’s creepy, controlled debut feature. Retreating to the woods surrounding their German hometown, three ostracized high-schoolers create an arcane shared reality that provides them with comfort, support and the opportunity to explore boundaries in a uniquely non-judgmental way. But Lenz’s steady, sorrowful film radiates ambivalence about whether that’s a good thing or whether, in finding each other, these kids will be lost to the world. That’s the thing about forests; you can lose sight of them for the trees.
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