What would happen if the Earth's magnetic poles reversed? The answer can be found in Survivre, the new film by Frédéric Jardin, in cinemas on June 19, 2024. A common theory in conspiracy and climate-skeptic circles,pole reversal is in fact a fairly frequent phenomenon in the Earth's geological history, although the film points out that the last occurrence dates back over 700,000 years.
While disaster films are a rarity on the French cinematic scene, Survivre gets off to a pretty good start. Emilie Dequenne, Andreas Pietschmann and their two teenagers are on a pleasure boat when disaster strikes. Suddenly, the currents get stronger, the wind picks up and satellites start dropping into the water like flies. Far from being a simple storm, the event causes the ocean to recede.
Cut to black, the sailboat finds itself in the middle of a desert previously filled with salt water. It's a race against time for the little family, who must find a place to take shelter before the poles reverse and the water returns to its natural habitat.
There's no doubt that Frédéric Jardin had all the cards in hand to make Survivre a breathtaking work. Unfortunately (and as with the vast majority of French genre films), the director doesn't follow through on his idea, quickly abandoning thedystopian aspect - in other words, the most interesting part of the film - in favor of action scenes with no real interest or reason.
The day after the disaster, the family is stalked by an individual (who is he? why does he have a grudge against them? No explanation is given, and he doesn't say a word in the film), and it's a bit unlucky for them to run into the misanthropic zinzin who goes peanuts as soon as the world goes to hell (literally). It's a manhunt that could have happened anywhere, in any other film, with the science fiction taking a back seat.
The latter part of the film makes up for it a little, with some pretty good shots of beached freighters, mounds of hitherto underwater waste and arthropod attacks, but the most haphazard direction of the actors, all snot, tears and howls, doesn't help the film rise from the abyss.
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