Vivarium: A Kafkaesque Nightmare

Finding a home, a definitive place to settle, is not an easy task; But in the case of Gemma (Imogen Poots) and Tom (Jesse Eisenberg), this goal will turn into a true Kafkaesque nightmare. With this premise, that of a young couple looking for their home, Vivarium starts , a film by Lorcan Finnegan that plunges us into a labyrinth that goes from the absurd to the suffocating.

But Vivarium is much more than the simple odyssey of finding a home. Vivarium is a satire, a parody of our society, of those ready-made lives and canned smiles that advertisements invite us to aspire to. At the same time, it supposes an observation, an analysis of homo sapiens in which they end up equating us to those animals, insects or even plants that have been placed in an artificial habitat for our personal enjoyment.

There will be no shortage of surprises, tension or laughter. The main duo works perfectly and will face a most surreal situation. Gemma and Tom go to a real estate agency with a strange agent who will lead them to “their home for life”, a semi-detached house in a suburban development.

The young couple will try to escape from an artificial universe, a paradise that recreates the maximum human aspiration in an empty way. A whole dehumanized maze of identical houses that parodies life in the suburbs.

Vivarium : a bitter laugh

Despite being designed as a film, the truth is that Vivarium is very susceptible to serialization. Its format, narration and even aesthetics make it greatly reminiscent of the British series Black Mirror and could easily pass for being one more episode of said fiction.

The use of color, the dehumanized world and the satirical and at the same time cruel message, inevitably invite us to think about the series. In fact, more than one will love it in its first minutes, it will be tedious towards the middle and, finally, it will hook you again in the final stretch. And, although we know that we are watching a movie, we cannot help but think that it is part of a series and, in this sense, it would have some footage left over.

But Vivarium is solving the problems that arise and, when it begins to stagger, it goes back and wakes us from our lethargy with an uncomfortable joke or the deafening screams of an unbearable child.

What is a vivarium ? Well, simply, an artificial habitat created with the sole purpose of simulating the natural space in which the species confined in it would develop. We, as human beings, seem to grow with the world at our feet, there is no species above or parasite that threatens to snatch our nest from us.

However, the film establishes an interesting parable with cuckoos, those birds that invade the nests of others and leave their young in the care of an “inferior” species. What would happen if, suddenly, a rival arose for the human being, a similar species capable of invading his space? That is, in part, what Vivarium offers us , a look from a distance, from the magnifying glass and observation, towards our selfishness and our contemporary way of life.

Thus, a satire is drawn, which of course has thriller ingredients , but invites us to think about our own society. It is not only a parody of the periphery, of the suburbs, but of marriage, motherhood and, above all, our species.

We as an object of study

What would happen if a more evolved -or more parasitic- species observed us? As we have been advancing, Vivarium separates us from our nest, puts before our eyes the absurdity of our daily lives to, finally, laugh and invite us to think about the treatment we give to other species.

The film does not adopt an antispeciesist position, nor does it pretend to be a lesson in morality, it only observes us, analyzes us and shows us how ridiculous we can be. Science fiction takes over our world, a dehumanized world in which we live with canned smiles and happiness that we share on social networks, but it is far from reality.

A great weight of the film falls on its actors who, although they are few, embody their roles with absolute brilliance. Without going any further, Imogen Poots, the protagonist, has won the award for best actress at the Sitges Festival. And it is that neither his interpretation nor that of his few companions will leave you indifferent in this fable so deeply rooted in cuckoos, the parasitic species in which you will not be able to stop thinking during its viewing.

Cold and absolutely artificial colors decorate this satire of modern life, making it a film worthy of analysis. Vivarium will make us rethink our passage through the world, the absolutism of our species and how stupid some of our decisions are.

What if we lived in a kind of model, in a habitat created for our species? This is what residential neighborhoods appear to be like. In a fantastic and suffocating key, it plunges us into an oppressive place from which there seems to be no way out and which, nevertheless, is frighteningly common.

In short, Vivarium is one of those films in which it is better not to reveal too much, but to let yourself be carried away by the situation and give free rein to possible interpretations. An entire analysis of our species – but also of our contemporaneity – from an external point of view that will not be exempt from comedy and even terror. The suspense will go in crescendo to give rise to a kind of eternal return, a bitter laugh that mocks our existence and our passage through the world and that will make more than one person rethink their existence.