Mark Kermode reviews Surviving Earth

Ajouté : 2026-05-07

[00:00:00]Surviving Earth. So this is in cinemas now. This came out last week, but we had such a packed show last week that we did we weren't able to review it. So this is the debut feature from writer director Thea Gaich who I first met at a film festival last year in Croatia. Um now I think I'm right in saying that her father is Serbian, her mother was from Liverpool. She grew up down south. we met on the island of Loped when she had made the film and she was looking for distribution and is now out and anyway when we met she had a tattoo on her arm of a harmonica and I play harmonica as you know and I started talking to her about why why she has a harmonica tattoo and she said well it's to do with my dad and it's to do with this film that I have I made about her dad so her dad was a musician who played harmonica and who dealt with some very dark addiction issues in his life and she had made this film surviving earth about him, about his struggles, about his music and about his relationships with his family. Here is a here's a clip from the trailer.

[00:01:05]Always stick to these three things in life. Something to do, someone to love, and something to look forward to.

[00:01:17]>> Hey, Mikey.

[00:01:18]>> This is Maria, my daughter. I don't think you've met. Hi, darling. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.

[00:01:26]>> I've got something for you.

[00:01:28]>> I can't play.

[00:01:29]>> Maria, how many times have I told you if you can breathe you can >> you can play the harmonica?

[00:01:34]>> Which of course we all know is absolutely true. If you can breathe, you can play the harmonica. Um, so Slavin is particularly well.

[00:01:42]>> Thank you, Simon. That is very kind of you to say so. Um, but as we know, the great thing about a harmonica is you can't play a wrong note, unless you've got a chromatic harmonica, in which case you can play every wrong note. Um, so playing the harmonica is easy. Playing the chromatic is rather more difficult.

[00:01:55]There's very good harmonica playing in this film, incidentally. Um, so Vlad is recovering addict who uh arrived in the 90s, is now living in Bristol, has a daughter played by Olive Gray who lives in London, has a very conflicted relationship with him due to his past addiction and abandonment issues. and he plays in a Balkan band doing support slots where people talk all over their sets and they want their own gig and the his band they dream up a night called the Balkan Express. But putting on a gig requires money and it also requires Vlad not to fall back into his old habits and addictions. So, as I said, this is the feature debut from uh Theoic and I think it I think it's a really impressive piece of work. I mean, it's it's one of those films, we've talked about this before, that proves that universality comes from getting the specific details right. So, you know, if you get the minutia right, the bigger picture falls into place. And I think it's there there are many of us who will not have lived experiences that are anything like what's going on in the film, which which is very very closely uh autobiographical. I I interviewed uh the director, the director on stage at the at the BFI earlier this week. and was saying, "How close is it to reality?" He said, "No, it's very very close." And because those experiences are very specific, you might think, well, you know, how how are we going to get into this? But because the details of that are done so well and because it feels authentic, um, it rings true. And I also think everyone can understand themes of both loving and being estranged from a parent and seeing your parents struggle with stuff and and and feeling alienated from but also intimately connected to that.

[00:03:41]The other thing of course is that music is a driving force in the film. Um it's the music is the central character's spirit. It's vibrant. It's exciting.

[00:03:52]It's unruly. It's a it's a little bit dangerous. And I think that when uh when the film does the musical sequences, they're done with such a confidence. They're done with a confidence of somebody who has found a way into the story that can then speak to other people. And there's this there is a harmonica, a central harmonica in the drama which is passed from father to daughter and has come down, you know, generationally. And it's kind of it's like it becomes like a talisman. And there is there's a moment in the film when the harmonica gets stepped on and I literally gasped out loud when it happened. I was like, you know, >> is that like the like the otter getting it >> the ring of bright water? Same thing.

[00:04:36]>> That film has really done for you, hasn't it? You're never ever going to get away from that.

[00:04:40]>> That's awful moment when the harmonica gets it. I think it's one of those things that when somebody manages to pull something like that off to make you genuinely gasp at something as apparently ordinary as a small musical instrument getting stood upon. What that tells you is that the film's worked that it has drawn you enough into the story and you believe enough in the the bits and the mechanics of the story. you're invested enough in them to be shocked by something as apparently uncensationalist as somebody stepping upon a harmonica.

[00:05:15]The other thing I would say is if I still had the Scarlet Show, which of course I don't because Scarlet doesn't exist anymore. If I did, I'd be playing the tunes from this film every week because I I love that kind of music. So I Anyway, as I said, it came out on Friday. It's in cinemas now, but I think it's a a really terrific piece of work and it's got great reviews and um and it's really good to see. It's really really good to see, you know, yet another filmmaker making their mark and once again demonstrating that, you know, inventive, adventurous cinema is alive and kicking.