Martin McCann stars as a man who will do just about anything to survive in Stephen Fingleton’s gripping debut feature
THE SURVIVALIST (Stephen Fingleton, 2015)
Saturday, April 18, Bow Tie Cinemas Chelsea 6, 9:15
Tuesday, April 21, Regal Cinemas Battery Park 11-6, 9:00
Saturday, April 25, Regal Cinemas Battery Park 11-10, 8:45
tribecafilm.com
Stephen Fingleton’s debut feature, The Survivalist, arrives with the kind of expectations that are, well, tough to survive. The script was on both the 2012 Hollywood Black List (tied for fourteenth) and the 2013 Brit List (number one) of best unproduced screenplays; the self-taught Fingleton has been included in various names-to-watch, stars-of-tomorrow lists; and his twenty-three-minute SLR was shortlisted for an Oscar. Despite all the buildup, The Survivalist lives up to its billing as a gripping dystopian thriller from a major new talent. In the indeterminate near-future, oil production has plummeted while population growth exploded, leaving very little food available. Deep in the forest, an unnamed man (Martin McCann) lives by himself, fiercely defending his small cabin and vegetable garden. He is part Mad Max, part Rambo, setting traps to catch animals and protect him from other humans who might threaten his self-sufficient existence. But when the stoic Kathryn (Olwen Fouéré) and her teenage daughter, Milja (Mia Goth), show up, asking for temporary food and shelter — and willing to offer an alluring trade for them — the survivalist ultimately decides to let them into his carefully organized private world, knowing that things could change drastically at any moment.
Stephen Fingleton and Martin McCann talk things over on the set of THE SURVIVALIST
The Survivalist opens with long scenes of no dialogue or music at all, just naturalistic soundscapes, setting the stage for an intense, powerful experience. The Northern Ireland forest is like a character unto itself, living, breathing, fraught with menace. Fingleton and cinematographer Damien Elliott zoom in extra close on the man’s eye lashes, as if each individual hair were fighting for existence as well. McCann (Shadow Dancer, Clash of the Titans) combines danger with tenderness when he softly caresses a photograph of a woman or makes soup for Kathryn and Milja, his eyes ever-alert, revealing someone who is still trying to hold on to his last vestiges of humanity. Theater veteran Fouéré and young actress Goth are superb as a mother-and-daughter team desperate to make it through the apocalypse. The relationship among the three protagonists evokes Don Siegel’s underrated 1971 Civil War drama The Beguiled, in which Clint Eastwood plays a wounded soldier being tended to in a girls boarding school, only taking place here in the future instead of in the past. Despite knowing better, you’ll want to root for all three of them to triumph in this horrific ticking-time-bomb of a world, which might be a whole lot closer than we think. Fingleton also made a well-received short prequel of sorts, Magpie, which establishes the fiercely taught mood of the feature film but is best watched afterward. The Survivalist is having its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, with screenings April 18, 21, and 25.
Greendale, Neil Young’s “musical novel” about a small American town encountering a few troubles — including drugs, corporate greed, extramarital doings, the murder of a police officer, and a little red devil — is simplistic, amateurish, silly, and a lot of fun. The music, especially “Falling from Above,” “Devil’s Sidewalk,” and “Bandit,” is awesome, featuring Young’s soaring guitar and the solid backing of Crazy Horse. There’s no dialogue in the film, just the characters lip-synching to Young’s singing. With Greendale, Young has created his own little world, and for nearly ninety minutes, it’s a pleasure to be a part of it. The direction is credited to Young’s alter ego, Bernard Shakey, who is enjoying a weeklong retrospective at the IFC Center, consisting of a 35mm print of Greendale, a digital restoration of the director’s cut of Human Highway, the twentieth-anniversary of Dead Man (with director Jim Jarmusch participating in a postscreening discussion on April 23 at 7:00), a high-definition digital projection of Journey Through the Past, a 35mm print of Year of the Horse (with Jarmusch at the IFC Center for the 9:45 screening on April 23), and other musical journeys starring Young, who continues to make vibrant music as he heads toward seventy. 
Malaysian-born Taiwanese filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang’s What Time Is It There? is one heck of an existential hoot. When his father (Miao Tien) dies, Hsiao-kang (Lee Kang-sheng), who sells watches on the street in Taipei, becomes obsessed with a series of things: a strange woman (Chen Shiang-chyi) who insists on buying Hsiao-kang’s own watch and then leaves for Paris; Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (Tsai’s “all-time favorite film”); urinating in whatever is near his bed instead of going to the bathroom; and changing clocks to Paris time. Meanwhile, his mother (Lu Yi-ching) is determined to follow ridiculous rituals to bring her husband back, and the woman in Paris (Cecilia Yip) goes through a number of bizarre events as well. There is not a single camera movement in the film (except for in the 400 Blows film clips); the scenes are shot by Benoît Delhomme in long takes, often lingering before and after any action — when there is any action. The dialogue is spare, ironic, and hysterical. If you like your movies straightforward and linear, then this is not for you, but we loved this absolute riot of a film. And yes, that person sitting on the bench in the cemetery is exactly who you think it is. One of several Tsai films in which Lee portrays a version of Hsiao-kang, What Time Is It There? is screening April 24 at 7:00 as part of the Museum of the Moving Image’s fourteen-film tribute to Tsai’s career; other upcoming films include 
If you’re going to make a movie with the awesome title Rebels of the Neon God, it better be a damn fine, supercool, unusual, even rebellious film. And that’s exactly what Malaysian-born Taiwanese filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang’s debut feature is, a damn fine, supercool, unusual, and rebellious film about teen angst and urban alienation in a changing Taipei. Written and directed by Tsai, who went on to make such other stunners as The River, The Hole, Vive l’Amour, and What Time Is It There?, among others, Rebels of the Neon God is a slowly paced minimalist tale of interrelated characters who come together in fascinating, unexpected ways. Lee Kang-sheng, whom Tsai discovered smoking a cigarette on the street (for the television piece Kids), stars as Hsiao-kang, a teenager who has decided to cash out of cram school without telling his parents. His father (Tien Miao), a cabdriver, and his mother (Lu Yi-ching), a spiritualist who believes that her son is the reincarnation of the rebel protection deity Nezha, don’t know what to do with their extremely quiet son, who seems to have little interest in life except for going to video arcades. Meanwhile, Ah Tze (Chen Chao-jung) is living an odd life himself, stealing change from public phone booths and becoming friendly with a young woman, Ah Kuei (Wang Yu-wen), who slept with his brother, Ah Bing (Jen Chang-bin). One afternoon, Ah Tze and Ah Kuei are on a scooter when they pull alongside Hsiao-kang and his father in a cab, and after getting honked at for blocking a lane, Ah Bing smashes the father’s side-view mirror, a deed that Hsiao-kang decides is not going to go unpunished.