✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

You have reached the limit of free articles.


To enjoy unlimited access to Culture Whisper sign up for FREE.
Find out more about Culture Whisper

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy

Each week, we send newsletters and communication featuring articles, our latest tickets invitations, and exclusive offers.

Occasional information about discounts, special offers and promotions.


OR
LOG IN

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

Thanks for signing up to Culture Whisper.
Please check your inbox for a confirmation email and click the link to verify your account.



EXPLORE CULTURE WHISPER
✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy
Forgot your username or password?
Don't have an account? Sign Up

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

If you click «Log in with Facebook» and are not a Culture Whisper user, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and to our Privacy Policy, which includes our Cookie Use

Support Us Login
  • Home
  • Going Out
    • Things to do
    • Food & Drink
    • Theatre
    • Visual Arts
    • Cinema
    • Kids
    • Festival
    • Gigs
    • Dance
    • Classical Music
    • Opera
    • Immersive
    • Talks
  • Staying In
    • TV
    • Books
    • Cook
    • Podcast
    • Design
    • Netflix
  • Life & Style
    • Beauty
    • Fashion
    • Gifting
    • Wellbeing
    • Lifestyle
    • Shopping
    • Jewellery
  • Explore
  • Shopping
  • CW SHOPS
  • Support Us
  • Get Started
  • Tickets
  • CW SHOPS
Get the Best of London Life, Culture and Style
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
Cinema

The Survivalist film review ★★★★★

12 Feb 16 – 31 Mar 16, 12:00 PM – 12:00 AM

Post-apocalyptic drama The Survivalist is an impressive first feature from Irish director Stephen Fingleton

By CW Contributor on 5/2/2016

1 CW reader is interested
Mia Goth, Survivalist film still
Mia Goth, Survivalist film still
The Survivalist film review 5 The Survivalist film review Caroline Halstead
The Survivalist UK release date 12 February.
Anyone watching the opening sequence of The Survivalist might think they’ve stumbled across the wrong film.
The post-apocalyptic drama opens like a documentary: a red line snakes its way across the screen along axis of a graph, representing global population, increasing steadily, along with oil levels. Both lines then plummet.
It’s a stirring sequence that sets the tone for the rest of Fingleton’s film. The Survivalist’s is a world, in the not so distant future, where oil supplies have all but run out and civilisation has fallen apart. The film hones in on three individuals struggling to survive – and the terrifying lengths they go to protect themselves. It paints disturbingly bleak, often violent picture of how primal instincts reign in the face of threat.



The film follows the ‘Survivalist’ – played by Martin McCann – living out a solitary existence in a forest, on the margins of the crumbling world. His subsistence lifestyle is abruptly disturbed by the arrival of an emaciated woman (Olwen Fouere) and daughter (Mia Goth) in search of food: he must decide whether to leave them to starve or invite them into his fragile world.
What is unique about Fingleton's film is that it plays out almost as a silent movie. No words are exchanged at all in the first fifteen minutes. Interactions play out through gestures and glances, tiny negotiations of power. Never patronising, Fingleton invites his audience to infer its characters' histories and kinks, from subtle signs and signifiers. Simple objects are given deep significance.
There is something of a younger Michael Fassbender in Martin McCann as the unnamed lead. He is the picture of solitude in his claustrophobic forest shack, and Mia Goth is haunting as the calm antithesis to McCann's vulnerable masculinity. Irish theatre actress Olwen Fouere puts in a chilling performance as the film's ruthless pragmatist.
Scenes of sex and nudity never feel gratuitous or fetishistic, exposing The Survivalist's pervading sense of the primal and the animalistic. Grim duties like the disposal of dead bodies or the self-cauterising of wounds are unembellished and make for visceral watching.
Incredibly spare camerawork puts the onus entirely on its actors – they improvise most of their lines – and there's no music at all except for the lilt of a harmonica. The snapping of twigs or the heavy breathing of lurking predators are the only real sounds in the film, and its sparsity is all the better for it.
As a suspenseful and deeply moving picture of what remains of humanity when civilisation breaks down, The Survivalist is an understated masterpiece.
The Survivalist UK release date 12 February.


by India Halstead

What The Survivalist film review
Where Various Locations | MAP
Nearest tube Leicester Square (underground)
When 12 Feb 16 – 31 Mar 16, 12:00 PM – 12:00 AM
Price £ determined by cinema
Website Click here to go to the film's IMDB page.



Most popular

Things to do in London this weekend: 29 September –1 October. Photo: Frieze Sculpture Park
Things to do in London this weekend: 29 September – 1 October
London exhibitions to see this month
Top exhibitions on now in London
Omar Sy in Lupin part 3, Netflix (Photo: Netflix)
What to watch on TV this week

Don't miss:


  • 1. 2015 ON SCREEN

    We look back at the best films of the year

    2. ROOM

    We interview the director of Frank and new genre-defying drama

    3. TARANTINO RETROSPECTIVE

    BFI celebrates the work of the film industry's most notorious gangster

    4. WHAT WE'LL BE WATCHING

    The most exciting films coming up this year

    5. JAPANESE CINEMA

    New season at the ICA celebrates Japanese filmmaking at its best

Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
1

BAFTA 2016

Mia Goth

Sci Fi

We Love

You might like

  • Trumbo film still

    Trumbo film review ★★★★★

  • Secret in Their Eyes, Photograph: Universal Pictures

    Secret in Their Eyes film review ★★★★★

  • Mustang film review [STAR:4]

    Mustang film review ★★★★★

  • Our Little Sister, Photograph: Artifical Eye Publicity

    Our Little Sister film review ★★★★★



  • The Culture Whisper team
  • Support Us
  • Tickets
  • Contact us
  • Press
  • FAQ
  • Privacy
  • Terms and conditions
  • Cookies
  • Discover
  • Venues
  • Restaurants
  • Stations
  • Boroughs
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
×