The Survivalist

This won't be everyone's cup of tea. I however have watched plenty of absolute rubbish and this film is well acted, filmed and written. I'm a big Walking Dead fan and this reminded me quite a bit on it, although more a slower stronger tequila without zombies than the beery dead. The atmosphere is palpable and a lot is left to the imagination as to the whys and whats however the interplay in a low number of characters is pretty intense. You do need to be able to enjoy this kind of thing and there's a lot of subtext social commentary in here, not much is in your face explicit generic movie script that spells everything out. Shot beautifully in Ireland, intense stuff with no laughs, but I thought pretty fresh.

The Survivalist is BAFTA nominated film about a man who is trying to survive in a post apocalyptic world where food is scarce and where people will kill to take it from you . He comes across a mother and daughter and isn't sure he can trust their intentions. This is Grim to say the least. Not grim in a bad way because the story dictates it should be that way but it is hard watch at times. It's graphic as well. Sexually and violently and the characters on display don't say match. Possibly because they are continuously suspicious of each other or maybe because of what they have witnessed in the past , words are as scarce as the food they crave. Good performances from Martin McCann ( we never get to know his name) and Mia Goth add up to an interesting film that might not be to everyone's taste.

I overall liked the movie. It didn't try to take on a large topic. It wasn't fun or nice or had a happy ending, just a well told story. Many movies are trying to be more than they are, and this wasn't one of them. It was very well acted and has great visuals. Often times, movie will go for 1-3 minutes without any dialogue, which I found to be an effective way to tell the story.

Main 3 characters didn't have any allusions of hope; they were just there trying to survive day-to-day. I am a fan of the Dystopian genre; however, often times, it ends up being unrealistic or trying to a franchise maker. This didn't try any of it, and just succeeded to be a strong movie.

Extraordinarily well executed, fresh, replete with lots of smart details bring it all to life. The characters are believable; raw and wild, running on their baser instincts, struggling to be civil in a world where gnash-toothed animals survive and civility only gets you dead. They try to be civil! Oh bless their hearts they try.

What I loved the most is the transformation you see in the characters; they go from feral, viciously unlikeable creeps to slowly warming up and right before your eyes they bloom into something like humans again, full of love and empathy and hate and greed and loyalty and all the paradoxes of the human condition. The setting is well fleshed out, with enough mystery regarding the details of society's breakdown to suspend any disbelief you might have about the premise. You feel like it's real. The characters further help you sense the desperation and anxiety of the world portrayed here. It's very somatic; you feel the hunger, the distrust, the anger and the violence of revenge.

I was left feeling grateful for the world I live in, which is the purpose of theme I suspect. It really could be worse. Watch this movie and feel intense gratitude for your humdrum life. Enjoy!

As a species, us humans have a curious fondness for grim and gloomy art. From skull tattoos to death metal bands, there is an unrelenting fascination with the macabre and morbid, and films are no exception. It's surprisingly difficult to recall a genuinely gloomy film which didn't get inexorable approval. From the true life horrors of Hotel Rwanda and The Elephant Man through to the fictional bleakness of The Road, Nil by Mouth and Tyrannosaur, there is something peculiarly fascinating about watching unrelenting despair and observing the malevolence of humanity on the big screen.

Intentionally set in an undefined year of the near future in an indeterminate part of the world, the human population has grown exponentially to the point of saturation; food is at a premium and from the movies sporadic intimations, society has regressed back to packs of hunter/gatherers. The survivalist (as we never learn his true name) has managed to create a small farmstead in the middle of a dense wood just large enough to keep himself self-sufficient. When mother and daughter couple Kathryn (Fouere) and Milja (Goth) appear at his door asking for food and shelter, the survivalist's controlled unaccompanied existence is threatened as his morals become confused; to keep himself safe or to assist his visitor's needs.

A sound method to keep costs low when producing a movie is to isolate the action to a restricted area, keep the number of actors limited and construct a simple and focused story line. The risk with this technique is that the movie becomes more of a theatrical production where each moment becomes intensified and less freedom is given to procrastination. It is unsurprising therefore that the lead character is given to an actor with an education in walking the boards. The film devotes a significant amount of time to building McCann's character, devoid of dialogue and with extensive intense close ups.

Due to the utter desperation of The Survivalist's plot, it requires total commitment to its audience and at times starts to meander yet manages to pull itself back every time just before the bleakness becomes tiresome.

There are enough plot and character surprises to keep the movie interesting, the acting is excellent and the limited scope of environment constantly feels claustrophobic but never artistically restrictive. The Survivalist demonstrates the way, once the whiteboard of social acceptability has been wiped clean, intimacy and sex become acceptable tradeable commodities.

The Survivalist is grim, depressing and about the least life- affirming film you're likely to see this year. Yet it is tense, wonderfully acted and a fascinating illustration of the instinctive brutality of humanity's will to survive.