Alive in Joburg

A documentary looking back a decade whenever aliens arrived in the already divided city of Johannesburg. The film shows the modern day enforcement action being taken against the inhabitants while also interviewing the original residents of the city as to why the tensions and divisions are only getting worse.

I cannot remember how I stumbled into this film but I suspect it was as a result of the buzz surrounding director Blomkamp and some of the projects he has been associated with of late. Set in South Africa the film is a strange mix of social commentary, sci-fi and special effects. So we get an impressive (for the budget) gunfight with a robotic-style alien combined with heavy linkages between the treatment of the aliens in the film and the treatment of blacks within South Africa. It is quite cleverly done but not as clever as some have suggested here. The metaphor is a good one but it is perhaps not as subtle as I would have liked and, even at 6 minutes long I still felt myself thinking "yeah, the aliens = black people, I get it". I am being a bit harsh on it of course and this "failing" (my words only) is not that big a deal.

Even if this aspect is a bit obvious, the "message" is not overly rammed down our throats but rather left hanging there. I would have liked it to ask its questions more obviously to the audience to force you beyond the simple message and make the audience question their own view on the aliens. Personally I did have a bit of a thought process about supporting the action against the aliens and I would have liked the film to guide me more down this bigoted path before pulling me back and confronting me with my own thoughts – as it is though the script is not smart enough to make that happen to the degree I would have liked.

Blomkamp's direction is good though and I did think that the budget was well used in the effects and the way they were delivered (the use of news style footage helped cover the limitations of the effects at some points). Overall then an interesting but perhaps too obvious film that delivers it message in a solid manner but didn't confront and challenge me as a viewer in the way that it could have done with more subtly and guile about it.

I saw this film online tonight and had no idea what it was. However, I was was quite impressed by this short movie due not only to its excellent use of a small budget (making it look pretty professional and expensive) but by the amazing plot. In this parallel world, there was no Black Aparteid in South Africa. Instead, aliens came to Earth looking for a home and the Aparteid system was created just for them. And also on this strange "bizarro" world, Blacks and Whites have much common ground, as they agree that the aliens are no good, lazy, smelly and worthless--just like the propaganda that was spouted for so long to excuse Apartheid in the REAL South Africa until only the last couple decades. The juxtaposition was great--especially when the viewers no doubt find themselves feeling terrible pity for these alien creatures--like more of us SHOULD have been feeling about Apartheid.

This is an amazing short-film from a director that is just beginning his career. Neill Blomkamp blends the latest FX techniques with a keen photojournalistic style to bring a sci-fi vision of a South African future. It is the near-future and alien refuges have arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa. The short takes a news documentary approach to tell the story of the aliens struggle to integrate into apartheid like culture. It raises an interesting social commentary on a galactic scale. Neill Blomkamp has been around for a very short time. He has done a few commercial advertising spots and some short films. Perhaps his biggest up and coming film is the tapping by Microsoft to work with Peter Jackson on the film version of the incredible video game "Halo". This project will be well suited to Mr. Blomkamp's style of mixing realistic and sci-fi environments. "Halo" shares a similar theme with Alive In Joburg, they both feature an alien invasion of Africa with a military response.

"We don't want to be here, this place doesn't want us... we have nothing, nothing."

I feel like Neil Blomkamp has been receiving a lot of criticism lately for Elysium and Chappie, but there is no doubt in my mind that much of that has to do with how much expectations we put on him after delivering one of the better sci-fi pics of the decade, District 9. His style hasn't changed much, but of course the social commentary from that film hasn't had the same impact in his most recent films. In 2005 Blomkamp made an interesting short that would later be the basis for his feature film District 9. In Alive in Joburg he already had the social commentary of the story worked out through this documentary style film making and even had Sharlto Copley play a small role in a film he would later star in (and which would change his career). The social commentary here is just as sharp as in District 9, and Neil actually incorporated interviews of many South Africans referring to Zimbabwean refugees in real life which in the short are made to be referring to the aliens that have invaded Johannesburg. It is a clear metaphor of racism and division of social classes (referring to South Africa's Apartheid era). It's also impressive to see some of the special effects here, which look great for a film shot on such a low budget. So impressive that it caught Peter Jackson's attention at the time who wanted Neil to direct the screenplay adaptation of Halo, but the project was later shelved. I'm glad Blomkamp was given the funds to expand this small film into a full feature length movie, because it turned out to be one of the best sci-fi movies of the decade: District 9.

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This impressive short takes a documentary form, but it's definitely no Christopher Guest style mockumentary. Instead it's got aliens—really realistic looking ones, with mech-style "bio-suits". Set in an imaginary South Africa where aliens have landed and taken up residence, Alive in Joburg poses as a documentary intent on examining how life has changed for residents there, interchanging interviews with realistic CG. The visuals are excellent and while the film's attempt to equate the aliens reception by locals with South Africa's Apartheid era are somewhat transparent, any attempt at social metaphor earns kudos from me.

The director, Neill Blomkamp, is celebrated for his advertising work, and won for himself— based largely on this short I would presume—the directing gig for the new Halo film. I must say, based on this film, it looks like a truly inspired choice.

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