Surviving Earth (15)
Directed by Thea Gajic
★★★★★

THE essence of Surviving Earth is encapsulated in a low-key scene, a quiet conversation bookended by moments of emotional turbulence. An addiction counsellor appreciates a young drug user’s concern about his wellbeing but suggests it isn’t her job to worry about him. “It ain’t a job,” she responds, “it’s just a thing what humans should do.”

The counsellor, the film’s protagonist, is Vlad, a Serbian refugee rebuilding his life in Bristol. A recovering heroin user and drinker, he is haunted by migration, the horrors of war and a crushing sense of personal failure. Hope lies in his passion for Balkan music, his support network and improving a fragile relationship with his daughter Maria, a gifted artist based in London.   

Exiled from his culture, separated from his family, Vlad’s mantra is that survival depends on having something to do, someone to love and something to look forward to. The last of these is provided by the prospect of a headlining gig for Balkan Express, the band he has formed with friends from work.  

The opening scene, in which Vlad works on the lyrics and harmonica part of a new song, establishes his talent as a musician and the joy he takes in his culture and his craft. Similarly, sequences featuring the band in performance capture the energy, chaos and transcendent power of live music. 

The key drivers of the film are its music, Gajic’s crisp but resonant dialogue, and the understated but unforgettable central performances. Slavko Sobin emphasises Vlad’s emotional precipices — and his failures to connect with the people he loves and needs — through the judicious use of hesitation, expression and gesture. Olive Gray’s restrained but compelling performance captures the tangled love, anguish, pride and fear in Maria’s response to her father’s behaviour.

A Choose Life poster provides an ironic nod to Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting (1996). Boyle’s story was a manic, funny and alarming examination of the direct impact of heroin addiction. In Surviving Earth, the mood shifts are subtler, and Gajic focuses on the wider fallout zone of drug use — the effects on those who work with and care for drug users.

Thea Gajic has written and directed a series of critically lauded short films. This — her quietly potent debut feature — is a film of astonishing promise, a gripping and touching drama that deals a devastating blow to Elon Musk’s assertion that empathy is “the fundamental weakness of Western civilisation.”

In cinemas Friday April 24.