‘Vivant’ Netflix Series Review - A Mind-Numbingly Tedious Drama

Yûsuke Nogi (Masato Sakai), at first, appears to be an irritating protagonist. His clumsy movements elicit groans from us, not laughter. This bumbling fool immediately turns you off, making it difficult to watch this series. When a taxi driver leaves him in the middle of the desert, you don't feel sorry for him. As far as the viewer is concerned, Yûsuke deserves trouble due to his incompetent behavior. But Vivant starts becoming interesting just when you think it's time to exit Netflix. Actually, the show always remains intriguing at the story level. There are so many twists and turns that keep you excited. This approach, however, gradually loses its charm. The more unpredictable a show or a film tries to be, the more predictable it becomes. We begin to see every motive and every action with suspicion. This places us three steps ahead of the narrative as we come up with the correct predictions regarding the characters' intentions and where the story is headed.

In such a situation, we seek pleasure from other places. Two scenes in Vivant manage to be a standout. In one of them, Yûsuke, Nozaki (Hiroshi Abe), and Kaoru (Fumi Nikaidô) cover themselves with excrement to avoid getting detected by a dog deployed by a police officer named Chinggis (Barslkhagva Batbold). It's disgusting, tense, and funny. In the other scene, two rival groups pull Yûsuke towards their side. Such amusing moments, however, disappear from the screen as the series progresses. After the fifth episode, you are immersed in the depths of dullness. Things reach such unimaginative heights that Yûsuke's other personality is weakly used to provide this character's history. Episodes 9 and 10 are incredibly tedious. The issue is not that they are talky. It's just that the expository conversations are extremely boring.

Vivant, through long expositions, feels the need to overexplain every single thing to the audience. Every detail, no matter how small, is constantly repeated. The creators might have pitched the show as something people can watch while folding their laundry or looking at their mobile screens. Vivant is made for the TV audience - those with short attention spans or who do chores while putting something on as background noise. You can doze off in the middle and wake up to find that a character is recapping whatever you missed. As a result, if you give your complete attention to Vivant, it will probably drive you crazy. All that reiteration surely gets on your nerves and leaves you begging for the end credits.

To overcome this boredom, you can spot movie/show references in this series. For instance, when Yûsuke goes back for Kaoru in the desert, you remember a similar scene from Lawrence of Arabia. You can also notice traces of Death Note in the fact that two brilliant individuals - Yûsuke and Nozaki - try to outwit each other. Vivant is heavily derivative, and more names would have popped up in my head if I, after a while, had not been bored out of my mind. Episodes 6 to 10 give so much priority to twists that nothing else seems to matter to this series. What's worse, the scenes are flat - there is no vigor. Yûsuke's clumsy mannerisms become bearable eventually, but lack of creativity in filmmaking renders everything insipid, and empty. Despite seemingly urgent actions and discussions on the screen, Vivant appears sorely static.

The ten episodes allow the show to go into personal, political, romantic, and intimate territories. Yet, none of these aspects turn out to be praiseworthy. Vivant becomes unbearable whenever it attempts to be emotional (Yûsuke's dream is clumsily executed). By the time you reach the penultimate episode, you impatiently wait for the show to end. In Vivant, blurry CCTV images are drastically enhanced. Noise is removed from damaged video recordings. A red line runs across a computer screen to locate a secret address. These visuals point towards something fun, something playful, something entertaining. Vivant proves to be the opposite of all these qualities. It's dreadfully mind-numbing.

Final Score- [4/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times