So it was recently announced that the director of District 9 is to herald the new Alien film. While many are excited and pleased at the director being given the reigns for the next chapter in the franchise, I have my reservations. In fact I have a lot of reservations.
Following the critical success of District 9, Blomkamp has been labelled by some as a “visionary” director, a real talent in the cinema world. Maybe he is, but it seems he has been riding on the District 9 success wave for too long now. Let’s get right down to business. His next venture, Elysium was a rather mundane and underwhelming project at best. Following that, Chappie was just godawful, flopped at the box office and is pretty much the Jar Jar Binks robot movie. So lately he hasn’t been doing too well, and I think there are a few specific reasons for that.
1. Moral preaching – In all of his movies, Blomkamp tries to preach some moral message, be it raise some ethical concern about social classes, wealth and poverty, or artificial intelligence. As Rotten Tomatoes reviewed, “Chappie boasts more of the big ideas and visual panache that director Neill Blomkamp has become known for — and, sadly, more of the narrative shortcomings.”, and that really is true. Blomkamp’s desire to say meaningful things outdistances his ability to say them compellingly. His scripts are too focused on the social message and subsequently lack a real story worth telling.
2. Directorial skill – I don’t think Blomkamp is really that skilled a director. Not skilled enough to handle Alien with the subtlety it requires anyway. There I said it. I know it’s just my opinion, but bear with me, allow me to justify.
He was recently interviewed about Elysium’s poor quality. When questioned about it, here’s one of his responses:
Interviewer: “As a filmmaker, when do you first realize it’s not working?”
NB: “I don’t really remember. I think, on some level, you probably innately know. The problem with me is I get so caught up in concepts and ideas. Like I just said, the ring is so cool. The satirical idea of a diamond encrusted ring above, like, slums is such a satirically cool idea – I’m not like a normal person in the sense that I have to have a story for something to be interesting. Concepts are just as interesting to me as stories are. Where, to normal people, stories are more interesting. So, that’s an example of what I mean. I can be like, “F*ck, I love this ring, I love all the visual effects related to it, I love these images and how they’re juxtaposed with one another.” And then be like, “as a director, I could have done better.” And you sort of realize that all these people prefer this element I didn’t pay as much attention to, but I paid a lot of attention to this. Do you see what I mean?”
To me he sounds like an immature child, getting over excited with “concepts” and “cool ideas”. And that’s the problem, he thinks “concepts” alone can carry movies, but really you need more than that. There needs to be depth. There needs to be a story worth telling. It doesn’t even have to be a masterpiece of a story, or have any moral/ethical messages he so desperately tries to preach. The first two Alien films had simple stories. But they were perfect stories, that suited the universe they took place in. The were in exquisite harmony with the concepts and atmosphere the directors envisioned.
3. South Africa – Now I’m no xenophobe or someone who doesn’t appreciate the wider world we live in beyond Europe or the States, and I appreciate the fact that the director actively tries to involve his hometown and country in the world of cinema. But after doing it in all of his films so far, it’s getting tedious. Some may consider me ignorant for having this view but the same could be said about Blomkamp. Is his imagination so insular and geo-restricted that he can’t make a movie beyond the borders of South Africa? The setting is becoming boring and I for one will really groan and sigh if I see a single South Africa reference in the next Alien film.
Overall Blomkamp characteristically displays certain traits in his movies, and I think if he really wants to excel as a director he needs break free of these habits. I think they are the real reason behind his recent underwhelming projects. I don’t think Blompkamp is a bad director. I think he’s probably just a bad writer and should probably stick to just directing. He needs to get over his obsession with just “concepts” and dare to step out of the banal mire that is post-modern Johannesburg.
dreadery 