District 9

I had no expectations of District 9 really - I had not seen any promotional material for the film (did I have my head under a rock? Maybe.) and I had heard mixed accounts - some people loved it, some people didn't. I knew it had something to do with aliens, but that's about it. It's good going into a film with no expectations, I think - everything is a surprise.

The first thing to hit you about the film is its very distinctive style; it's made as a mockumentary, in order to seem more real and more relevant. The word mockumentary has always implied, to me, that the documentary genre and style is being mocked, made fun of, satirised. As it turns out, the word actually means that the film is a mock-up documentary; a fiction film made using the conventions of documentary.

I really enjoyed the style choice - to begin with, it was novel - it got me excited about the film. Then, through the use of mock interviews commenting on the action, it gave a sense of objectivity - it suggested to me that I should view the events of the film somewhat critically. At first all of the shot choices supported the mockumentary style, but as the film continued and the story and its hero became clearer, the style gradually fell away, allowing the audience to become absorbed in the story-telling. As the film reached its conclusion, the style was again emphasised, through interviews and titles, reminding the audience once again of their responsibility to think critically about the film. Awesome! The only times where I think the film fell down a little bit stylistically was the use of some shots that tracked with some gunmen where the camera was obviously attached to the front of the actor. I feel that these kinds of shots give a fantasy, computer game-like quality that did not sit well with the rest of the film.

As for content, and the story was interesting and fast-paced but comprehensible. The unlikely hero was extremely unlikely, and very real in his flawedness. Most of all it's great to see a film tackling huge issues of human rights and prejudice without necessarily foisting any conclusions on the audience. I'm sure Peter Jackson does not regret putting his name to this one.

Heavenly Creatures

I watched Heavenly Creatures with Chris last night. I was pleased to be able to watch it, as it is part of the film theory class that everyone else in FTV is taking but I am not. Now I will be able to join in conversations about it, if there are any.

The film was bizarre, I must say. The acting from the two girls was very over-the-top, and a bit jarring at first, however I eventually began to accept it and their oddities. It did make the first half of the film quite hard to watch though, as not a lot was happening to distract me from the weirdness. One thing I certainly did like though was the sense of drama created by the shot choices. Jackson never shied away from laying all of drama bare to the naked eye and heightening everything. I loved a lot of the edits as well, most particularly the transitions between scenes. The ending was also amazing in the way that everything was suddenly drawn out, compared to the rest of the film where just about everything was heavily compressed. The tension was electric, and I felt sick to my stomach in the lead-up to the murder, knowing perfectly well it was going to happen, and simultaneously begging the characters not to go through with it. Even after the first strike to the head I still had the slightest hope that they would pull back, which made the rest even more gruesome to me.

The film makes me desperate to make a feature. There are just so many more opportunities for building style, characters and tension in a feature than in a short. Features are so much more complex, and so much more magnificent as a result. I'd love to write one and get to work straight away, yet where does one find ideas?!