District 9
Directed by: Neill Bloomkamp
Starring: Sharlto Copley, Vanessa Haywood, Mandla Gaduka
Rated: R for bloody violence and pervasive language.
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Coming Up In Film Got a film event you want listed? Email reviewer@ealasaid.com with details. AUGUST * August 19-20 at Camera 12: San Jose 48-Hour Film Project shorts. See www.cameraciemas.com/specialevents.shtml for details. * August 20 (7pm) at Camera 7: “Swan Lake” performed by Kirov Ballet, St. Petersburg, Russia. See www.cameracinemas.com/operas.shtml for details. * August 20 in local theaters: RiffTrax Live: Plan 9 From Outer Space. Featuring Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy (Tom Servo) and Bill Corbett (Crow T. Robot). See www.fathomevents.com for details. * August 30, 11am at Camera 7: Berliz’s “Benvenuto Cellini” as performed at the Salzburg Festival, Austria. See www.cameracinemas.com/operas.shtml for details. SEPTEMBER * September 2, 5:45pm at the Hayward Main Library: Good Enough for Film, “Freedom Writers.” Screening followed by a brief discussion. Contact 510-881-7980 for further information. * September 2, 7pm at Camera 7: Berliz’s “Benvenuto Cellini” as performed at the Salzburg Festival, Austria. See www.cameracinemas.com/operas.shtml for details. * September 17, 7:30pm at Camera 3: Thrillville’s Lucha Beach Party. “Santa and Blue Demon vs. The Monsters” (1969) and “Wrestling Women vs. The Aztec Mummy” (1964), plus Live surf music by San Jose’s own Aardvark, with a live fashion show by The Rockabilly Models. See http://www.cameracinemas.com/specialevents.shtml for details. * September 24, 7:30pm at local theaters: US debut of English-dubbed “Eureka Seven – good night, sleep tight, young lovers.” See www.fathomevents.com for details. |
“District 9” has one major difference from most films that have come out in the last decade or so: its previews tell the audience nothing about its major plotline. They give you a peek at the world it’s set in and a feel for the film’s tone, and that’s about it. As a long-time moviegoer, I found it rather refreshing, so the first half of this review isn’t going to discuss the main plotline at all.
The underlying premise of “District 9” is that about twenty years ago, an alien ship coasted to a halt above the city of Johannesburg, South Africa. The aliens on board were found huddled together and starving to death, so a humanitarian (alienitarian?) effort moved them to the surface, into an area called District 9. The human residents are not happy about this, and soon the aliens are segregated and their area becomes a slum. The slum is run by Multinational United (MNU), a vast corporation with its own merciless private security forces.
The aliens, commonly referred to as “prawns” because of their crustacean appearance, are not the sort of aliens we’re used to. They’re not particularly intelligent and have none of the unearthly grace of the gray, big-eyed aliens in other films’ flying saucers. These aliens are fast, ugly, and frightening — and entirely computer-generated. After a few minutes it becomes pretty easy to forget that, though, and simply hang on for the ride.
“District 9” is an odd blend of subtlety and heavy-handedness. It’s mostly a documentary presented by unreliable narrators, and much is presented without explanation and left for us to figure out on our own, or with the viral publicity information floating around. For example, I knew going in that the aliens had all been forced to take human names because I’ve been reading mnuspreadslies.com. Those who haven’t may be confused by aliens with names like “Christopher.” There’s a very dry and sometimes very dark sense of humor threading through the film as well, but it has no background music and comedic cinematography to make it obvious.
There’s nothing subtle at all in the film’s allegory about racism and apartheid, though. The aliens are discriminated against and treated in much the same way as blacks were under apartheid. Even the name of their slum is a reference to the notorious District 6 in Cape Town, whose black residents were forcibly evicted. This is director Neill Bloomkamp’s first feature-length film, which at once explains a lot and makes “District 9” even more impressive. For a first film, this is something of a masterpiece.
And now, folks not wanting to know about the main plotline should skip to the last paragraph.
The story, after quite a bit of setup, comes to revolve around Wikus Van De Merve (Sharlto Copley, in his first feature film), a well-meaning but not terribly bright MNU field operative. He’s been put in charge of relocating all the prawns from District 9 to a new encampment far outside of Johannesburg. When he winds up infected with alien DNA and begins mutating into one of them, MNU takes him captive and begins experimenting — you see, the aliens possess very advanced weaponry which only works if the person holding it has alien DNA.
The aliens, for the most part, are drones — not terribly intelligent and mostly good at taking straightforward orders. Their commanding elite have vanished, mysteriously, leaving the drones aimless and helpless. Or have they? When Wikus escapes from the nefarious MNU scientists, he winds up hiding out in District 9 and meets Christopher Johnson, who certainly seems to have a lot of smarts and initiative. Wikus and Christopher team up to help each other: Wikus wants to be returned to normal so he can be reunited with his wife, and Christopher wants to get back onto the alien mothership so he can effect a rescue.
It’s not a terribly new storyline, but it works here, in part because Wikus is so foolish that he’s hardly an action hero. Copley turns in a solid performance, making Wikus believable and sympathetic, and reacting to the CGI aliens very credibly.
Ultimately, whether you’ll like “District 9” or not depends heavily on your tolerance for its strange blend of subtlety and hamhandedness, and your willingness to simultaneously suspend disbelief and think a little. It’s not a perfect film, but it is a very good one, and well worth watching for fans of science fiction. It does have some rather disgusting moments, though, as well as some sequences of torture, so the faint of heart may want to stay away.