Perspectives on Pop Culture and the Arts

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Alive in Joburg: A short film

Here is a pretty sweet short film by Neill Blomkamp that depicts a fictional world where extraterrestrials have become refugees in South Africa. Brilliant use of subject and narrative elements, CGI, hand-held photography, editing, and what appears to be some very convincing stock footage with matted overlays.

What I really love about this short is how, despite the cool-but-simple special effects, it's not overly flashy or wrapped up in the science fiction and plays completely to the strengths and resources of the filmmakers. The documentary/drama/action hybridity work quite well in creating a film where the fantastic elements seem like they should be commonplace. Really, aside from some of the syntactic details, it's a simple satire, which works quite well in supporting the social commentary on race conflicts in South Africa (and the rest of the world).



[If you are having trouble viewing it here, click the title bar link]

2 Comments:

Blogger Neal Romanek said...

Dynamite!

Exactly my cup of tea and one of those films that makes me say: "Oh, I wish I'd done that!"

I'm linking to "Alive In Joburg" as well as to this blog on my site today.

12:56 PM

 
Blogger Mike said...

Thanks for the plug. We'll sort something out here for you as well.

8:43 PM

 

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