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Review of District 9
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If you’re at all interested in this movie, I highly recommend seeing it before too much of the story—or hype, or criticism—is spoiled for you. The fewer expectations you have, the more surprised and entertained you may be. But here are a few things it won’t hurt to know going in.
• The entire movie is a string of TV clips, documentary-style interviews, “live” footage, and—especially in the second half—more conventional cinematic scenes.
• An alien ship first appeared over the city of Johannesburg in South Africa twenty years ago.
• The aliens themselves are called ‘prawns’ by humans, a derogatory term in reference to their appearance and their scavenging nature.
• Overseeing the “management” of the aliens is the MNU (Multi-National United), a private but powerful company described as “the global leader in technology innovation,” which is “committed to bringing humankind to the benefit of tomorrow’s technology today.”
• The chief protagonist is a man named Wikus, a field agent who works for the MNU. Right at the outset, he’s placed at the head of a massive endeavor: relocating the prawns from District 9—a government camp (and slum) they’ve been sequestered in since their arrival—to a new camp well outside Johannesburg. If this sounds even vaguely familiar, it might very well be a parallel to District Six, a real-life historical occurrence of South African apartheid.
• Another primary character is a particular prawn who goes by the name Christopher Johnson. Humans have given prawns human names to better identify them. Once you see him, keep an eye on him. He's the one in the orange "clothing."
So that’s the setup. What happens? That’s where you really ought to see the movie. But I will say a bit more.
The movie wastes no time diving into the heart of the story, providing background very quickly. There’s no slow build-up to the first moment we see the aliens. Within the first few minutes, it’s established that the aliens showed up 20 years ago and that presumably something big recently happened that changed things. The rest of the movie shows you just what that was, bit by bit.
The film is directed by South African-born Neill Blomkamp, who was originally set to direct a movie adaptation of the Halo video games. Funding for that project was eventually dropped, but producer Peter Jackson (of The Lord of the Rings fame) stepped in and gave him a green light for District 9.
Strictly speaking, this is a science fiction film, but I found it easy to forget that fact, because the special effects, the interaction between human and alien, and the drama of such a co-existence is so seamless that it's very believable. Halfway through I decided the movie wasn't really about the aliens, or about crazy technologies, but about the MNU and what it stood for—us. It's about prejudices, apartheid, and our cultural or societal instinct to divide. And, of course, the greed of a powerful p
ercentage of the human race.
It called to mind an excerpt from an essay I read years ago (C.S. Lewis, "Religion and Rocketry"). The supposal is that we as a species come in contact with an alien species, presumably on a planet we've managed to reach:
"It sets one dreaming—to interchange thoughts with beings whose thinking had an organic background wholly different from ours (other senses, other appetites), to be unenviously humbled by intellects possibly superior to our own yet able for that very reason to descend to our level, to descend lovingly ourselves if we met innocent and childlike creatures who could never be as strong or as clever as we, to exchange with the inhabitants of other worlds that especially keen and rich affection which exists between unlikes; it is a glorious dream. But make no mistake. It is a dream. We are fallen.
"We know what our race does to strangers. Man destroys or enslaves every species he can. Civilized man murders, enslaves, cheats, and corrupts savage man. Even inanimate nature he turns into dust bowls and slag-heaps. There are individuals who don’t. But they are not the sort who are likely to be our pioneers in space. Our ambassador to new worlds will be the needy and greedy adventurer or the ruthless technical expert. They will do as their kind has always done. What that will be if they meet things weaker than themselves, the black man and the red man can tell. If they meet things stronger, they will be, very properly, destroyed."
Of course, in District 9, the aliens come to us, and though they may be technologically superior, they're incomplete, lacking the presence of their leadership—and are therefore subject to our laws and our manipulation. The movie does what I think all good speculative fiction should. It entertains while conveying some larger ideas or real-life parallels. You can pay attention to that if you want, or you can simply enjoy the story.
Well, enough talk of subjugation. This is what I took away from the movie, just one interpretation. A good film will have many. I enjoyed District 9 on many levels: as a high-speed sci-fi jaunt, an action film, a cultural drama, and even a bit of a love story. There's some seriously good acting, a lot of gunfire, MNU mercenaries, criminals, scary-looking aliens (and even one cute one), and not one dull moment.
But please don't bring young children to this movie. District 9 is extremely violent. Perhaps because Peter Jackson produced it, there’s quite a bit of gore and plenty of excellent alien special effects. But the speed and nonchalant, unglorified nature of the blood and guts makes it fairly easy to stomach and move on from.
Another thing that really stood out to me was that our hero, Wikus (played by Sharlto Copley), is no Bruce Willis. He's the everyman; a bit of a coward, a bit of a wimp, a bit of a selfish jerk. But he's brave, tough, and selfless just when he needs to be...when he's backed into a corner. He's precisely the kind of hero we can relate to.
For more info: Play around the D-9.com website, which is presumably run by the MNU itself. Of course, the MNU has its own website, too, at multinationalunited.com.
Or, in defiance, read mnuspreadslies.com, a blog written by a non-human equal rights advocate (Christopher himself, in fact!).
These websites have been part of the marketing strategy for District 9, but they're also entertaining in their own right quite apart from the movie itself.
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