Michael Shackleton
Survivor

In Zona Cesarini regarding the Cold War, we're in 1987, this film is directed by Michael Shackleton from a subject by Martin Wragge.

Shot predominantly in South Africa, 'Survivor' is an American production and a science fiction film with a post-apocalyptic setting, potentially falling into the b-movie category, although in reality, the production quality is far from mediocre, and this definition seems unfair to a film that has been unjustly forgotten but has all the features that could have made it a cult classic of the genre.

The film begins with the launch of a space shuttle by the Americans. The mission's purpose is to put a satellite into orbit for purely defensive reasons, but in a climate of international tension, this event triggers a nuclear conflict between the United States and the USSR, leading to a holocaust and a significant alteration of our planet’s atmosphere. The events cause the death of billions of people; it is believed that there are almost no survivors, along with a drastic desertification of the planet. Water, which is scarce everywhere, becomes one of the main causes of conflict among survivors.

Christopher Mayer, known as 'Chip', recognized for being one of the actors in the TV series 'Dukes Of Hazzard' and here in his only significant film role, is simply 'Survivor' in the original version, while in the Italian version he is alternatively called 'American' or 'astronaut'. He is indeed the astronaut who was on board the space shuttle that launched the satellite and the main cause of the conflict. Returning to Earth, after learning from a character named 'Turk' about the existence of a small community of survivors, he sets out into the desert using old tracks of an abandoned railway line aboard a solar-powered vehicle, fueled by special panels.

The one recounting the story and the events is the same 'astronaut'. For the most part, the film is devoid of real dialogue, built on the alternation of scenes at different moments that perfectly convey the hallucinatory situation in which the protagonist moves, until the discovery of the underground city where some survivors live, and the confrontation with his nemesis, the soldier Kragg (Richard Moll) who has established a true reign of terror.

Having settled in the community, which is in disarray and without any plan on how to survive the situation, Kragg has radically changed their perspectives, renouncing all the rules of the pre-holocaust world, placing himself as the absolute dictator. He then began implementing his plan. Fertile women can only mate with him, who considers himself a superior being, and his children are destined to repopulate the Earth and create a better world. For every new birth, one of the community’s inhabitants, chosen at random, dies.

When he confronts the astronaut, he recognizes him as his equal and even a sort of privileged person for having witnessed from above what he considers not the end of everything but the beginning of a new era. After passionately revealing the contents of his hallucinatory vision in a monologue, he proposes sharing command with him, also to differentiate the genetic heritage of subsequent generations.

'Survivor' is somehow a film referencing other works. It somehow recreates atmospheres and scenes typical of the great masterpieces of science fiction, challenging you to recognize them. Its strength lies entirely in these scenes and the recovery of all these imaginary elements, in the ability to recover this entire heritage in a new 'ultimate' context, and up to the power of the dialogues: the monologues of the astronaut himself, expressed in narrating the story to the viewers; the passionate one by Kragg where he presents his hallucinatory vision of the future before the inevitable final confrontation and fulfillment of the prophecy.

Assassin: extremist of the Persian cult, adept of world purification. Among the devotees, eternal happiness was promised in exchange for unquestioned loyalty to the master of the mountain, so-called for his impregnable fortress atop a hill. He fattened his devotees with hashish and opium in his paradise garden and organized sex orgies with exotic concubines. Believing these pleasures to be a foretaste of paradise, assassins willingly sacrificed their lives so that such ecstasies could become eternal.

What is not said is that they only killed the corrupt and incompetent! And that during their so-called 'reign of terror' the Persian Empire experienced the only period of peace and civilization in its five-thousand-year history!

Is this what you are, assassin? A devotee offering his life to purify the world? Or just a hitman for incompetents?

Eleventh edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. A priceless treasure. A bit dated... 1903. Ancient history for a physicist, right? But even Einstein had nothing more.

It is not an interesting equation: your life for mine. It doesn’t add up.

They were attached to the past, and I throw them back into it. Guardians of the values of civilization! Pompous peacocks showing off! The crowning glory of civilization was collective suicide! Well. At least they remain faithful to their values.

They committed suicide! When they sent you!

Perhaps they considered themselves similar to Egyptian priests. They and their progeny,
destined to live for centuries awaiting a future destiny full of glory. Enlightened kings of a new humanity.

You did well out there, assassin. You’re good at extending your life. A few seconds here, a few seconds there...

Decision: what should I do with you? You tried to kill me. Do I apply the ancient 'eye for an eye' rule? Or do I find new truth for a new reality?

Everyone thinks it's the end of the world. It's just the beginning!

Defenders of human evolution... What they truly want is for evolution to stop with their death! Just like the dinosaur, the dodo, and the platypus. The so-called 'Homo Sapiens', master of science, how much of the world have you managed to see? But now the mess is cleared away, the Earth is finally purified. We live a white canvas waiting for the masterpiece. Homo Realitas! The realized man!

I envy you. You were there and saw! How many men among the billions who have lived, had this opportunity! You witnessed the creation of a new reality! You saw it as God would have seen it! And you also saw all the horror...

These truths are not for the faint of heart.

New reality, new game, new rules: a seed in the first board. This place is a living hell. It's the first board of the new game. The seed has to be right. Mine is right. I say it without boasting. It's a simple fact.

But I worry about genetic degeneration from interbreeding. I'm not saying it for myself, but for the men to come. Therefore, I must let others reproduce. The race needs to be strong. But whom to use? Those monkeys with murder instincts or those wretches down there, who don’t know what to do, they’ve never known. Do you understand my situation?

Each of them is chosen for the excellence of mind, body, and spirit. Sexual slaves? Nonsense! She is here by choice and so are the others. Slave mothers bear slave children. My children will be free and so will their descendants. Freer than man has ever been. In twenty generations, that is four hundred years, we will be a million. In thirty, a billion!

We will exterminate the outsiders, cultivate the desert, in a thousand years
a new planet Earth will exist! I need you and your science! Everything you know must be passed on to future generations. We will create a new race of warriors, artists, scientists. Your descendants and mine.

Are you my friend or enemy? The children of my friends will be friends of my children, but the children of my enemies... We don’t want to repeat the same pathetic cycle of every age? From Cain to Abel?

You tell me then, physicist or assassin? You know what must be done. Will you help me do it, will you be loyal to me, will you teach your children to be loyal to mine?