Viveiro

I had heard about this film from a reviewer i watch on YouTube, she mentioned it's not for everyone but based on her synopsis I figured it'd be up my alley as i like mind bending films. Overall, I found it enjoyable, I liked the premise and the general mood of the film. It was slow in many places, I'd even venture to say it's a slow paced film in its entirety, but it only really feels slow in certain places. I'd like to imagine that's what the director was trying to convey; monotony, lethargy, emptiness, but it did drag on sometimes. The ending was slightly anticlimactic in my opinion and in general i felt the story left much to be desired. But again I like the idea of it, it just felt very bare bones like it wasn't fully fleshed out yet. Perhaps it could be better as a book where one can spend more time on the details. Would i recommend this? If you like movies with a hint of sci fi/psychological mind bending then maybe you'd find it pleasant enough. Not something I'll be revisiting though.

But then came the rest of the film. Tedious, repetitive, dull. I was SO glad when it was over. Ick.

Vivarium is another mushroom-trip inducing film. If you like slow, artsy, sci-fi, metaphor-for-life type films that leave you with a foreboding sense of dread and could possibly test your mental state after a year of COVID ... then this movie is for you. It is very well acted and I think it achieved what the director set out to achieve, but it may not make sense to you and might leave you feeling like you wasted 90 mins of your life, even during lockdown. If you do watch it, I suggest you come back and read some of the spoiler reviews here on IMDB to help make sense of it all. You might just find you liked it after all.

Unfortunately there's not enough substance here to fill up an entire feature film. There's A LOT of padding. For example the scene where they're listening to ska music in the car. It doesn't add anything much to the movie. It feels like the actors were told to just make up a dialogue on the spot.

For a movie of this kind to sustain our attention for a full hour and a half there needs to be more than just the initial concept. Unfortunatley there's not. There's no twist. There's no second act. There's a really interesting "nightmare"-type scene towards the end which feels for a moment like the movie's finally going somewhere. But then it dissipates and we're left with nothing much once more.

Why didn't the protagonists try and decipher the book that was delivered? Surely that was a vital clue? What caused their health to fail? Why didn't they try breaking into other houses on the street? I wanted these characters to fight to the death but they really went out with a wimper.

Could have been great.... but wasn't. Watch "the Platform" instead if you want surreal horror with a message.

It started out fine. The tone reminded me a bit of Cube (1997) and I have to say that I was intrigued for the first 30 minutes or so. But in spite of being a mere 90 minute long movie, it drags. Which reminds me of Richard Kelly's The Box (2009). Both movies have an interesting premise, which might be enough to fill more than an episode of a show like The Twilight Zone or Black Mirror, but not an entire feature film. The symbolism is very heavy handed and could have done with a bit more finesse.