The opening shot of 'The Survivalist' cleverly sets the situation in which the film is set: the camera follows two lines on a graph, one showing oil production, the other world population. While the oil one starts to reduce, the population one continues its dizzying climb (appropriately, the film is set in Ireland, home of the European Union's highest birth rate!) until suddenly plummeting. Thus the scene is set.
An unnamed man (Martin McCann) lives in a forest, protecting his vegetable garden from occasional marauders with his rifle, his knife, and his totally naff haircut. This hand-to-mouth existence is disrupted one morning when a mother and daughter appear, seeking to barter the sexual favours of the daughter (Mia Goth) for food. The two women stay and, although suspicious, the man gradually, slightly, lets down his guard - but are the women as innocent as they appear?
Essentially a three-hander, at first glance this could make a good play, although live audiences might find their attention wandering during the long periods where nobody speaks as they tramp through the forest, do gardening, or irrigate the crops by urinating on them. But on film these sequences have a quiet beauty (well, not the urination) and, crucially, writer/director Stephen Fingleton - who has won several awards for this work - doesn't over-play them, or drag them out - something of which certain other directors of far more experience would be guilty.
The acting is good, with all three leads providing low-key but believable - as far as the circumstances allow - performances. Olwen Fouéré is especially noteworthy as the older woman seeking to manipulate things in order to survive, and McCann provides some good facial expressions that well convey emotions that would otherwise remain unexpressed, such is the monosyllabic speech of his character.
Combining human interest with tension and threat, this is a low-budget gem that is well worth seeing if you get the chance.
