Genre: Science Fiction, Action
Director: Neill Blomkamp
Starring: Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, Robert Hobbs
Running Time: 112 minutes (plus trailers)
“There’s a lot of secrets in District 9”
In the mid 1980’s, an enormous derelict spacecraft comes to rest above the city of Johannesburg, South Africa, bringing with it over 1 million malnourished, uneducated alien refugees. Segregated from the human population for twenty years in a slum known as District 9, the aliens, with no understanding of human culture or behavior, have been mercilessly exploited by criminal gangs and the greedy Multi-National United, a weapons manufacturing company. With public dissatisfaction at the alien presence in the city at an all time high, the government has charged MNU with the task of relocating the entire alien population to the newly constructed District 10 outside of Johannesburg. Such is the premise of District 9, the first feature length film from 29 year old South African director Neill Blomkamp. Adapted (with financial support from Peter Jackson) from his own short film entitled Alive in Joburg, the movie blends a bizarre form of docudrama with sci-fi action, and whilst it is not without its flaws, it is undoubtedly one of the most visually and conceptually creative science fiction movies I have ever seen.Stylistically, this film is unique. It opens with a series of documentary style interviews with scholars, diplomats and MNU workers (all played by actors) who outline the unstable situation in Johannesburg. We are also introduced to MNU agent Wikus van der Merwe (played by Sharlto Copley), the man in charge of giving the aliens their eviction orders. Annoying, casually racist and generally incompetent, Wikus is hardly a likeable protagonist, and we watch with exasperation and then outrage as he carries out his orders in the district, sycophantically interacting all the while with the camera crew that is documenting the operation. For at least the first twenty minutes, District 9 is a documentary (although everything it’s documenting is fictional). Blomkamp uses interviews, stock footage, news reports as well as CGI and other special effects to almost flawlessly create a believable world in which aliens interact with humans. The interviews also provide tantalizing clues early in the film – we know something happened to Wikus, but we don’t know what.
Then, the film changes. On a routine inspection of an alien’s home, Wikus accidentally becomes infected with alien biotechnology, and his DNA rapidly begins to mutate. At this point, the film semi-abandons its documentary approach and adopts a more conventional narrative style. Wikus is now the billion dollar key to unlocking the secrets of alien bioweaponry, and with MNU wanting to harvest his genetic material, he hides in the one place that he knows no one would ever look for him: inside District 9. Sadly, the transitional period between “documentary” and “narrative” wasn’t very well handled – we cut between scenes of characters talking to the camera to scenes that were happening outside of what the documentary crew was filming. I would have preferred it if there had been a more obvious and definitive changeover point. What I did like however was that even more than an hour into the movie, Blomkamp would briefly cut to an interview that offered some insight into what was going on; essentially it was exposition, but it never felt like it.Blomkamp’s direction here really is impressive. Even during the narrative sections, he employs a cinéma vérité hand held style that makes the movie feel very realistic (although it did contribute to my confusion during the transition period I mentioned above.) I have written before about how I am not a big fan of hand-held camerawork in movies like Public Enemies or Rachael Getting Married because I find it distracting. However, it works perfectly in the narrative sections of this movie because of the documentary sections that preceded them. It’s the same reason I liked Cloverfield – the camera work fits the story, as opposed to just being a misguided attempt to provide realism. At the same time, Blomkamp is not without visual flare, and he often places the camera in interesting locations (such as attached to a gun barrel, facing backwards) to provide a cool effect. Before this film went into production, Blomkamp was attached to the adaptation of Halo. That movie ultimately fell through, and so some people see this as Blomkamp’s way of proving he is up to the task of helming a larger project. He’s definitely shown he’s worth his salt, and whether it be Halo or something else, I can’t wait for his next film.
The biggest area where District 9 disappointed me was in the execution of the actual story. I loved the alien refugee and DNA mutation concepts, and I thought the subtext of the film (which I’ll get to later) was fascinating. Unfortunately, the story that takes place after Wikus flees into the alien district was pretty contrived. Given that the movie builds such a realistic universe, it seemed sort of ridiculous how easy it was for people to break in and out of MNU headquarters. There was also an awfully clichéd “I’m not leaving you behind” scene towards the end, as well as a subplot involving Nigerian gang-members and witch doctors that I thought was incredibly stupid. One friend of mine said that he wanted to know more about the aliens – personally I’m in two minds. Like him, I was curious about their origins, but I was also really glad the film didn’t offer us a stupid scene of exposition in the final act (as lesser movies so often do). I think the style of District 9 gives it great potential for tie in media, and I would love to read a novel that offers us the alien back-story (or play a prequel video game – that alien weaponry was bad-ass). Ultimately, I was glad the movie didn’t over-explain things.Speaking of the alien weaponry, I should mention that I would have liked to see a bit more action. I appreciated how the movie made me think, but at the end of the day it seems like a missed opportunity on Blomkamp’s part not to take advantage of the awesome guns and vehicles the aliens possess. However, I do understand that there were budgetary issues, and that they simply couldn’t afford too much action. It’s not really a huge problem – the action, when it comes, is very good, and given that the movie was made for only US$30 million (as opposed to the $200 million spent Transformers 2), it’s impressive how much they were able to achieve – the CGI and the makeup is mostly excellent. Still, I’d have loved to see Blomkamp’s make this movie with a Michael Bay sized budget. Of course, had he done that, the studio would have probably interfered and the movie would have ended up sucking. C’est la vie.
I do think that District 9 is a very thought provoking film, and I want to talk briefly about some of the underlying themes (although I’m sure far smarter people will write about them to far greater lengths in the coming weeks). Most obvious was the apartheid parallel; racists are portrayed in this film to various degrees; the main villain – the mercenary hunting Wikus – is vicious in his hatred, and he (along with the head of MNU; the ultimate representation of corporate selfishness) makes for an excellent antagonist. But at the same time, the way Wikus himself throws around the offensive term “prawn” so casually is deeply unsettling. The movie also deals with issues of sexuality in a way not dissimilar to the films of David Cronenberg (in fact the whole film feel partially inspired by The Fly). District 9 certainly raises some great moral questions, which is becoming more and more rare in the never ending stream of summer blockbusters (no offense JJ – I liked Star Trek, but it was hardly a smart piece of cinema).One final thing; I want to tip my hat to the amazing viral marketing campaign for this movie; I’ve been immersed in advertisements for months, but they gave nothing away about the story, and a lot of the stuff in the trailer isn’t even in the film, something I wish studios would do more often (don’t worry, the missile catching scene is in there!) Ultimately, I feel that District 9 has a great premise and some great ideas, and while it’s something of a shame that they were let down by a fairly mediocre story, the movie is never the less worth seeing. In terms of direction, I think Blomkamp’s has constructed something that is unique, and while I don’t want to see this documentary style overused, it is certainly an experiment that warrants some further exploration. And like I said, whatever the man’s next film is, I’ll be first in line.
District 9 is in cinemas now.
You can watch Blomkamp's original short film Alive in Joburg here.
