Size Matter's Not
By
Michael C. Riedlinger
Editor-In-Chief
Shot on a Red One digital camera on a modest budget in the country of South Africa, District 9 is not the first film that comes to mind when you start thinking summer blockbuster or high-brow cinema, but it is both of these things. Directed by Johannesburg native Neill Blomkamp (in his major film debut behind the camera), District 9 manages to be thought provoking and exciting all at the same time. Michael Bay supporters take note: This is what the rest of us are talking about when we say that you can blow stuff up and still have a plot!
The story is shot in a pseudo-documentary style suited to the Red One, and follows Wikus Van De Merwe (newcomer Sharlto Copley) on his first day in charge of a large-scale eviction of aliens from the slum they have been living in since landing on Earth twenty years prior. Called “Prawns” because of the physical similarities they share with the crustaceans, the aliens seem to stand as an allegory to black South Africans. They are taken advantage of by gangs, maligned by those in power, and generally treated less than humanely. Of course, they aren’t human, and they have technology that no one seems to be able to harness. Their mother ship sits idly over Johannesburg, and humans cannot use their weapons because we lack the proper DNA. All the company Wikus works for wants to do is move the Prawns out of sight, 200 miles away, and they take their own armed security force in as backup.
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Enter Christopher Johnson and his son: Prawns that have a plan. Having spent the last two decades collecting fuel, drop by drop from scraps of Prawn technology, Christopher finally has enough to power a ship back to his home-world. Unfortunately, it is the same morning Wikus comes knocking on his door, and the bumbling human accidently spritzes himself with the black goo. This in turn changes his DNA and he starts to metamorphose into a Prawn. If this wasn’t aliens we were talking about, I’d be screaming that this was a cheap reinvention of
Black Like Me, but it isn’t. In fact,
District 9 is a whole lot more.
The best science fiction stories accomplish two goals. First, they make you forget that what you’re watching isn’t real. The effects and story of this film do that very well. You’re sucked into this world, and before you know it, you are ready to accept cat-food eating aliens for all they are worth. Truly great sci-fi also presents uncomfortable social situations in a way we can process without a massive freakout. The first interracial kiss on television, for example, could only have been presented in America in sci-fi in the 1960s. Blomkamp does that with apartheid in his homeland. We’re not thinking about Nelson Mandella the entire time we’re watching cows and security guards get vaporized by chain guns and plasma rifles, but in the back of our heads it’s there. The level of skill this takes may not be evident to some, but with a glut of sci-fi films that go no deeper than “CG stuff blows up nice”, it is really refreshing to feel like you’re part of something meaningful again watching a film like this.
The end of the film leaves a lot of leeway for a sequel, but it is satisfying nonetheless. If you’ve seen the director’s short film
Alive in Joberg, you won’t be disappointed by the way Blomkamp put Peter Jackson’s reported $30 million to use. What you get is a film that is worth every penny, and actually lives up to the hype for once this summer. Not only does it suck you in with an intense story and blow your mind with fantastic pyro and effects, it also convinces you that we really have a lot to learn when it comes to who we trust and how we treat each other.
District 9 is, by far, the best film of the summer, and one of the most interesting films of 2009.
Final Verdict (out of 5):
