The Short Films of Neill Blomkamp

Neill Blomkamp is a man who knows what he likes. After becoming a household name with sci-fi apartheid allegory District 9, he ventured further into space with a bigger budget for Elysium, which also explored ideas of inequality but never quite lived up to its promise.

Now, Blomkamp is back in South Africa with his new film Chappie, and if you take a look at his portfolio of past short films, it’s clear that a shared history links everything he’s put his name to. Most obviously there is Tetra Vaal, his 2010 short featuring an early design for the robot Chappie. Like much of his work it takes the style of a promotional film, adding layers of media context beyond the initial premise.

This isn’t just a crime-fighting robot, it’s one that’s been given a plausible place in the real world, complete with everything that might include: from test footage to an inspiring teaser film. In another reality, you could easily imagine this video being used to sell the robot in boardrooms around the world.

As intriguing as Tetra Vaal is in light of Chappie’s imminent release, there’s another film in Blomkamp’s back catalogue that combines the appeal of his biggest hits even more powerfully. Alive In Joburg was the 6-minute short that first led to District 9 and it works almost like a trailer for the feature film.

The familiar documentary style gives a taste of how the aliens are regarded by the residents of Johannesburg as well as delivering footage that wouldn’t be out of place in a charity appeal video. Alien ‘prawns’ huddle under blankets in shanty towns as armed police round up and hunt down any escapees, keeping them segregated and surveyed.

Just like in Chappie and District 9, difference is feared and treated with force. In an opening sequence that showcases Blomkamp’s ability to get the most out of tiny CGI budgets, one of the aliens fights the military in an armoured mecha-suit, hurling cars under a hail of bullets. Despite being little more than a rudimentary clump of pixels, Blomkamp manages to capture the forlorn misery of oppression on the robot’s face, a skill he appears to have taken to the next level in Chappie.

The final piece of the puzzle is Yellow, a video made for Adidas where Blomkamp was given a blank slate and asked to make a film based on his emotional response to the colour yellow. The resulting short has his fingerprints all over it.

In yet another of his sci-fi worlds, artificial intelligence exists and it can be imbued with different elements of human experience: emotions, memories, the ability to communicate. What happens when a robot that can think for itself tries to enter human society?

It’s a synopsis that reads almost identically to Chappie, with the key difference that the robots in Yellow are humanoid. Once more, that which is different is hunted down by the authorities, unable to live free on its own terms. Technology is created by us and so it belongs to us, even when powered by a free and intelligent mind.

These are themes that only become more resonant as our own real-life technology becomes more and more sophisticated. Blomkamp has explored them throughout his career with an empathetic and rigorous approach and it looks likely he’ll continue to do so with increasing reward. Before you go and see Chappie, quite possibly his best film yet, take a look back at Blomkamp’s previous shorts. Whether robotic, alien or human, they all remind us that equality and empathy should forever be valued far above fear.