Survive

You don’t have to know nothing about science in order to enjoy Frédéric Jardin’s family-focused fantasy romp about the perils of magnetic pole reversal, but it helps.

Screened as part of Frightfest 2024, it follows doctor Julia (Émilie Dequenne), her husband Tom (Andreas Pietschmann) and their teenagers Cassie (Lisa Delamar) and Ben (Lucas Ebel), who are taking a boat trip to celebrate the latter’s 13th birthday. If you’re going to name your boat the Orca, like the one in Jaws, it could be said that you’re asking for trouble, but it’s not a shark that gets Julia into trouble in the water in the first sign that something is wrong. Later, when Cassie is video chatting with her boyfriend back home, a spectacular thunderstorm is taking place in the background. Whales progress past the boat in some number, away from their usual route – and then there are repeated cutaways to the boat’s compass, which is spinning wildly.

This is just the beginning, though we stay with it long enough to get to know this family: the easy, relaxed love between the parents, the rivalry between the kids, Ben’s deep admiration of his dad, Cassie’s uncomfortable blend of competing emotions. When the sun rises the next day, none of that will matter. They will find themselves in an entirely new landscape, facing threats they have no idea how to deal with, and with a dangerous journey to make if any of them are to survive.

Wild as its take on the polar phenomenon is, Survive feels at times like the sort of game many of us played as children, in which some massive and unlikely change had happened to the world and as a result it was imperative that we not touch the floor or step on a crack in the pavement. Silly as it is, it has the same kind of exuberant spirit, and it’s played with absolute conviction throughout. The secondary themes about parenthood and how it reshapes one’s survival instincts are very real and make it easier to suspend disbelief about the rest. The landscape makes absolutely no sense in light of the larger calamity that is supposed to have happened – even if that were physically possible – but that’s okay if what you’re really here for is the adventure.

One of those films that’s always going to be at its best when watched in a group, this really packs in the action, with Dequenne’s intensely physical performance and Nicolas Errèra’s energetic score ensuring that it keeps its grip throughout. Danger can come out of nowhere and constant ingenuity is required for the family to stay alive. During the slower moments, Jardin focuses on character, showing us how each of them is changed by their experiences as we see them doing ordinary things differently or simply staring at a sky whose thick blanket of dust makes it resemble that of Mars.

We live in a world which is undergoing massive changes, and perhaps that’s what this kind of film, and those kind of games, really exist to prepare us for. Once things really get bad, there’s no time to think about the long term. With Survive, the less you think, the more fun you’ll have.