Alive in Joburg (2005)

Alive in Joburg (2005) *** (out of 4)Neill Blomkamp's short film is basically what we would eventually see in DISTRICT 9 as a group of aliens land on Earth looking for a place to live.Is this movie flawless? Not even close but it's extremely well-made and it makes you really impressed with what the director was able to do with such a small budget. We get an interview with one of the actors and this here is just the structure for what's going on in the "outside" world where we then see footage of the aliens as well as news footage of the events going on. Blomkamp is very creative in the way he edits all of the footage together and he does a very good job with very little money. Fans of DISTRICT 9 will certainly want to check this out.

This Is The Movie That Was An Abstract Short Movie Version Of District 9 Which Is A Nominee For best Picture At The Oscars. I Decided To Watch The Original Short Alive In Joburg.This Is An Interesting Sci-Fi But To Me The Movie Is A Metaphor For Racism. You Look At This "Boat People" Thing Going On Right Now Them Living In Crap Conditions...In This Its The Same Thing But Instead Of People You Get A Squid Humanoid. As This Goes It Explains What The Hell Happened With The Aliens In Documentary Style With Riots.To Fully Watch This & Enjoy It You Have To Be In The Right Frame Of Mind. This Is Not Action Packed(The Only Action Is Against The Battle Suits), This Is Pretty Much A Less Violent Version Of "Halo" But Overall...Yes This Movie Is Enjoyable.

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.

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.