Elysium gives Vancouver a shot in the arm
Big-budget sci-fi tale injects excitement into film community hit hard by downturn
TORONTO — Neill Blomkamp goes from indie darling to Hollywood player with his big-budget blowout Elysium this weekend, a sci-fi spectacle that puts a muchneeded spotlight on Vancouver talent, say members of a cast and crew drawn heavily from the West Coast city.
Co-star Josh Blacker gushes over Blomkamp’s intricate cinematic vision, crediting the Vancouver-based writer-director with injecting fresh excitement into a tight-knit film community hit hard by a recent downturn in work.
“Most of the films that we film in Vancouver were oftentimes sort of the second cousin [to other productions], or we’re doing work after-the-fact where it’s not a local filmmaker making a blockbuster in Vancouver,” says Blacker, noting that’s quite different with Elysium.
“There’s this real sense of ownership and people were really proud of the work that was being done and the fact that it was homegrown, essentially.”
The big-budget Elysium is backed by Sony Pictures but has deep roots in Vancouver.
Blacker notes much of the supporting cast was drawn locally, while visual-effects executive producer Shawn Walsh says most of the film’s eye-popping visuals were done at the Vancouver-based company Image Engine.
As in Blomkamp’s Johannesburg-set breakout District 9, the effects-laden Elysium combines futuristic weaponry with frank social commentary, this time skewering the divide between rich and poor.
The year is 2154, when overpopulation and pollution have forced the Earth’s wealthiest to flee to a man-made space station known as Elysium — a floating utopia featuring gleaming lakes, lush parks and marble-clad mansions.
Life on this rotating, ring-shaped sanctuary is idyllic and disease-free, in stark contrast to life on the squalid Earth, where much of the population is sickly and destitute.
A beefy Matt Damon stars as the desperate ex-con Max, who is drawn into an against-all-odds scheme to get to Elysium. Jodie Foster plays power-hungry defence secretary Delacourt, who is determined to maintain her pocket of paradise with covert help from her Earthbound mercenary, Kruger, played by District 9 star Sharlto Copley.
Blacker plays one of Kruger’s two ruthless soldiers, and together they supply much of the film’s more brutal combat scenes.
“We formed a really tight-knit group, the three of us, and really bonded on set and I think that comes across in the film,” says the 40-year-old Blacker, who is also originally from South Africa, as are Copley and Blomkamp.
“In the film, we’re supposed to have worked together for a long time and having that freedom to really explore the character and improvise with each other allowed us to really create an intimacy that I think may not have been there had Neill not allowed us to go down those paths.”
Blacker, who came to Canada when he was 16, says he put on about 15 pounds of muscle for the role and did a lot of his own stunts. That included a climactic fight scene with Damon where he’s thrown against a pane of glass.
“That was something that Neill wanted me to do because of the way they were going to shoot it,” says Blacker, who used to practise law in Calgary.
“So I spent four days training for that with incredible stunt guys — the stunt group on this film was incredible — and it made me realize why I don’t want to be a stuntman. It’s tough work.”
He credits Blomkamp, who studied at the Vancouver Film School, with bringing global attention to the Canadian film industry and showcasing its ability to make big and bold features.
Although Damon and Foster are front and centre, he notes that Elysium is stacked with Canuck actors in the background, including Adrian Holmes of Continuum, Jared Keeso of The Don Cherry Story, and Saving Hope star Michael Shanks.
“He’s incredibly loyal and I think it’s about creating relationships and trust,” Blacker says of Blomkamp, adding that they’ve become good friends since making the film.
“When you have such a unique vision as his, I think you want to make sure that everybody is on the same page. And he runs a set that is incredibly collaborative.”
Walsh says Blomkamp and his ambitious visions raise the bar for future homegrown work.
“He’s absolutely I think the poster child of a fantastic kind of local filmmaking that has gone on to very much be on a different level,” says Walsh.
Elysium hits theatres as the Vancouver film community wres- tles with an especially competitive industry that cost the city the Fantastic Four reboot. Earlier this year, the big-budget super-hero flick moved to Louisiana, lured by lucrative tax incentives.
Blacker says several more productions have chosen Toronto over Vancouver because of more favourable Ontario tax credits, taking even more revenue out of the West Coast movie hub.
“Neill is an amazing filmmaker and if he gets to make more of his films in Vancouver, I think our industry will bounce back. It’s in a tough time right now but with filmmakers like him … setting up shop in Vancouver, I think the future is bright.”
Elysium opens Friday, with advance screenings starting tonight in some cities, including Victoria.