Mémoires d'une survivante

I saw this film on TV in the early eighties. Looking back I remember very little of the detail but it was one of those rare films that made you feel cheated when it finished because you wanted it to continue. Strange yes, but still maintained a credibility throughout. I was totally engrossed.

This film was my introduction to Doris Lessing and shortly after seeing the film I bought the book. Now, having read all her books, Lessing is one of my favourite authors. Would like to see the film again - anyone know if it's likely to be re-released?

Not having read the book on which this was based, I found myself wondering quite a lot during the movie: a) I wonder what's going on b) I wonder what this has to do with the plot (if there is a plot) c) I wonder why I rented this

The soundtrack is very poor and there are moments in the movie when the dialog is unintelligible. Had there just been a little more connection or linkage between the "real" world and the fantasy world, I may have empathized with the character more. As it was, I felt that I was suffering more than "D" - but was grateful my agony would only last two hours.

I found the film immensely interesting. You see the decay of urbanity from the eyes of a woman ('D') hiding in her bastion of civilisation, a council flat. Her impregnable retreat is suddenly breached by the intrusion of two factors, the imposition on her by an unnamed authority of an orphan called Emily, and her sudden realisation that beyond the wall lies the past? the future? or perhaps an alternative world told through the various incarnations of a house she visits as an unseen entity.

While the brutalised orphans of the streets outside seem to be beginning to supplant the authorities and are accelerating the end of the world. D realises through her wall, that the condition of her society is not new. Society grows from strict disciplinarian routes, and when achieved embarks on a decaying relaxation of morals which inevitably ends in the collapse of society. Those that are necessary to rebuild society are not necessarily nice people, merely essential, thus we arrive at the Gerald character. Eventually Emily and Gerald rescue the savage (troglodyte) children of the subways, and with the help of D and the wall, take them to a new Eden, where the children will be able to begin a new society starting from caveman.

It is obvious because of the cannibalistic nature of the children that Gerald, Emily and D will not survive this process, but their action is essential to build anew, and the children will begin without the memory of their former civilisation's decay. Thus we are brought from the end of the world, to the beginning of a new world for the orphans of the old. Most people believed that the collapse of D's world was a prediction of the collapse of our own, but perhaps our world is actually the one behind the wall. That is up to you.

This is an intensely moving novel produced by a woman of feeling who had witnessed the brutalisation and savagery of war at close hand and understood the nature of the fall of society. Not an action film, but a masterpiece that many will not understand because of its intensely philosophical nature.

The sets, lighting design and foreboding music score all match the gloominess of the material here well, and the atmosphere that these combined elements achieve is what keeps the film relatively intriguing. The first third definitely works better than the final third of the film though, as in the beginning one is trying to decipher what it is all about, and towards the end it just drags, and it looks like it is building up to some revelation, yet at the end nothing new is revealed. The plot is really strange, with many different elements of science fiction worked in, ranging from portholes to the notion of a dire dystopia. It seems somewhat messy, but even so, some have been able to find their own meanings in it, so the film is probably worth a look if it sounds interesting. I would not call it a brilliant film myself, but it definitely does have some elements that will be of interest to certain viewers.

'Memoirs of a Survivor' is a film that really can't be recommended. It's slow, obscure and poorly directed. One suspects that it would be a lot more interesting for people who've read the source novel but a film needs to exist on its own and the filmmaking isn't good enough to do it.

But despite it being largely tedious and dreary, in another way I found it mildly admirable. It makes no attempts to be a 'commercial' sci-fi film and wants to tell its odd story in its own way. While it isn't successful on that score, it maintains a sense of integrity.

I have similar feelings about Julie Christie and her performance. On one hand she plays such a passive, inert character that her significant talents are wasted. But in another way it's admirable that she decided to take such an unusual role in an ambitious film when she could've easily coasted along in Hollywood in bland big-budget blockbusters.

Overall, 'Memoirs of a Survivor' is a failure as a film, but its effort and ambition are to be admired.