A group of individuals are recruited to participate in behavioral and situational exercises to benefit the on-going Mars exploration team in Stéphane Lafleur dead-pan and profound sci-fi, Viking.
Opening in the similar Blade Runner questioning scene, we meet David (Steve Laplante), who is answering a series of true and false questions to qualify for the Viking Society program. The Viking Society is an experiment that recruits candidates similar to the astronauts on the current Mars mission. The founders of this program created the program to find solutions for the crew up above using similar traits found in the recruitment process. Likewise, to the Blade Runner questioning to figure out if you’re a replicant or human, David is looking to be a replicant of the astronauts. David, a high-school gym teacher who lives with his wife, Isabelle, has an average, unfulfilling life, with little to no excitement. This opportunity creates a new beginning for him, as right before he receives the confirmation call that he is accepted, visions of an astronaut appears, later used as a symbol of hope and change for himself.
David meets the crew, and are taken to a replica mars base in the middle of nowhere within a vast land of mountains and beige sand to recreate the real crew’s experience. The other four members meet David, and with the film’s first absurd moment, each member was assigned based on the true and false questions, scored similarly to the astronaut they are standing in for. David is now John, and he meets Steven, who is played by a woman (Larissa Corriveau); Janet, the female chief; Gary, a young male; and Liz, a woman who is played by an old man. This team of five is led by the two coordinators of the Viking Society, Christiane and Jean-Marc. It is from first glance, that John and Steven have a close connection. The crew’s daily routine begins with receiving morning actions of how to act throughout the day, such as John having a real good sleep feeling great, but receives the message that he had bad sleep and is unpleasant. John and Steven go out as a pair to wander the land and survey it closely entering the will-they-wont-they relationship. The facility also recreates the ship’s experience such as rationing food and having Janet to lead meetings between the team causing conflicting ideologies and professionalism. These activities cause behavioral problems among the team leading to absurdist moments of reality and make-believe.
The film’s premise lays the groundwork to explore David’s insecurity with himself and purpose. Lafleur devices a unique strategy to discover David’s real self through this surrogate program. With a clever script, David/John is losing a grip on oneself, realizing the unfulfillment of his life or if he can take control back of himself and move forward. The backdrop of space travel leans into David’s void of happiness in his own, so to become someone new, smarter, and adventurous makes Lafleur’s setting an appropriate one. David’s willing battle against his unhappiness is the central emotion of the movie, and is peculiarly approached with a tonally idiosyncratic lens.
