With stylistic nods towards arthouse and grindhouse,this dystopian drama makes for an impressive, unsettling debutThe Survivalist is a stripped-down exercise in cinematic exposition that suggests its creator is a major talentSomewhere between the dystopian dreamscapes of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker, and the gothic western intrigue of Don Siegel’s The Beguiled,and the low-budget invention of Shane Carruth’s Primer lies this impressively unforgiving debut feature from Derry-born writer/director Stephen Fingleton. Set in a nonspecific future in which depleted mankind has reverted to a subsistence-level existence, this Bafta-nominated sci-fi anomaly is a bleak parable approximately the price of food, or sex and shelter in a post-civilised world. Although the title seems at first to apply to Martin McCann’s unnamed loner who ekes out a solitary existence in a woodland shack,it could equally apply to any of the three central characters who form its dramatic core. Telling its tough tale through gesture and action rather than dialogue (George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road is talkative by comparison), The Survivalist is a stripped-down exercise in cinematic exposition that suggests its creator is a major talent in the making.
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Source: theguardian.com