[CRITICAL] OATS VOLUME 1 – RAKKA

Neill Blomkamp presents us with a universe furturo-dystopian-alien, in a short film with mind-blowing special effects: Rakka.

Little history: Neill Blomkamp, director of District 9, had tried to seduce the internet in 2015, with concepts arts as well as synopsis quite advanced and promising, about a possible Alien 5. A project that, at the time, had packed all disappointed with Prometheus, but which, it appears, was purely and simply annihilated, leaving free the development license Alien under the guidance of Ridley Scott himself (see: Alien Covenant).

OATS STUDIOS was born as a result of these various setbacks in art (there are related public failures/reviews Elysium and Chappie), from a Neill Blomkamp wishing to develop the projects they want and independently, through crowdfunding and self-financing. The anthology of short films, OATS – available for free on the net, will tell us about the origins and consequences of the alien invasion of our good old earth; of the films under obvious influence of the saga Alien (Sigourney Weaver CUCKOO), but also of the film of Blomkamp himself, and the pop-culture SF as a whole.

The first short film Rakka, to see in its entirety below, thus presents to us the world futuro-dystopian result of this invasion. A future which is at stake the survival of humanity!

(click on the button “subtitles” window YouTube to view them)

One of the major strengths of this first episode, it is his technique. Special effects – depending on whether it’s a studio with “little ways” – are frankly mind-blowing. In fact, OATS breathes the real and sincere, the film technician FX avid managed to create a universe of hybrid between influences Illustrious (Alien, Predator, the Matrix,etc.), images of Epinal of the SF, and the viewer’s expectations.

In contrast, outside of the daily grind there, Rakka lack a little certain objectives basic of narrative and structure; the short film sentence, and to transform the issues that are presented (survival of humanity) in individual issues – those of the protagonists that we are much too briefly presented, the old Ellen Ripley Jasper, or even Nosh and Amir. Everything (story, characters, situations) is therefore developed with this picture – the opposite of psychological or thematic -, without taking into account that these “snapshots” used to illustrate this universe are far too ingrained in our collective unconscious to emerge as an original. Moreover, the universe futuro-dystopian-alien cannot be felt forever by the artistic direction (as in a Fury Road , for example), but only exists because it is explained – by the voice in particular. A given element will not necessarily make sense as such (the graveyard of bones, the suicide bombers, the “black smoke” destructive, experiments, totems of the dead…), which prevents the consistency of the whole, and by extension, the viscéralité of this universe and yet very detailed. We can also see in the extra-terrestrial Rakka and their way to alienate humanity by the power of telepathy and the technology to better the reduce slave/guinea pigs/cannon fodder, as an allegory of the combo internet/consumerism/ecological decline… We will wait to see more before I give you the ambitions political OATS.

The one in the other, Rakka is an undeniable visual power, but will certainly have to be built-in to the anthology before being fairly judged. In the state, a short film from a promising but very flawed.

Georgeslechameau

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