‘District 9’: Prawn to be wild
The “wow” factor in Neill Blomkamp’s “District 9” is huge – so much so that it would be easy to overlook what a soulful, tragically heroic story it is.
But then, with its brutal momentum and gross-out effects, it would be easy to skip past the depth with which Blomkamp and co-writer Terri Tatchell invest this film. Because, really, “District 9” slams it home as a muscular action film – humans vs. aliens, with aliens turning out to be the good guys – not to mention as a sci-fi thriller.
“District 9” starts from the premise that a massive alien mothership came to rest hovering in the sky over Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1981. Not that it did anything except just float there; eventually, South African forces boarded the ship and evacuated more than a million sickly aliens back to Earth.
The aliens look like a cross between grasshoppers and shrimp. The South Africans refer to them derisively as “prawns.” Unable to restart their mothership or do much else, the prawns are quarantined from the rest of the city, but become a nuisance – to the point that the government decides to evict them from their Johannesburg ghetto to a concentration camp many miles away. Any resonance with or comparison to apartheid is wholly intentional.
The film initially is told in documentary form, blending the feeds from the corporate PR cameras and those of cable news networks. MNU, the corporate entity in charge of the eviction, is also the nation’s largest weapons maker, with an agenda of its own. But that only becomes apparent as the story unfolds around its central character, a low-level functionary named Wikas (Sharlto Copley).
Wikas is put in charge of the massive eviction, but he also happens be the son-in-law of the MNU president, who knows what a tool Wikas is. Wikas is a figurehead, a clueless front man meant to distract attention from MNU’s darker plans, which involve caches of alien weapons the humans seized when the prawns first arrived.
But in trying to evacuate the shantytown where the prawns live, Wikas accidentally is sprayed with an alien fluid that affects his DNA and begins to turn him into a prawn. Which means he could hold the secret to activating the aliens’ obviously powerful weapons, which work only for the aliens, by DNA identification.
Wikas is marked for medical experiments but escapes and becomes a fugitive. He eventually joins forces with a prawn named Christopher, who spent 20 years gathering that DNA-altering fluid, which is also the only fuel for the stalled mothership. Together they set out to recover the remains of the fluid, which offers the key to restarting the ship.
Wikas, played by Sharlto Copley, is the most intriguing character in the film: a human with the same anti-prawn prejudice as everyone else – until he starts to turn into one. Seen through his eyes, the prawns become more human – and the humans more cold-bloodedly vicious.
There are loose ends to the plot, to be sure, and a story that doesn’t quite know when to call it quits. But Blomkamp’s visual sense – his blend of astonishing CG creatures with jiggly, verite cinematography, lends the film not just realism but real excitement. And that’s not to mention the poignant quality it earns by the end.
If you’re looking for a fast-paced creature feature, “District 9” more than fills the bill. But it gives something more, which raises it several notches above simple genre excitement.
August 10th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
I’ve seen reviews of this film where people have called it “racist”… but of course, that is the whole point! The film is a tale of the wars based on “otherness” that surround us. in this case, all of the humans are bad, and only the aliens emerge as the pure ones. in the film black people try to eat somebody for medicine, white people try to subvert everybody and kill them. It shows the most violent and dark side of humanity, black and white, superstitiously dangerous and cynically murderous.
A disturbing sci-fi journey into the dark and hate-filled corners of apartheid and the human soul itself… welcome to district 9.
August 10th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
I have read several reviews and the social commentary could not be more obvious. District 9 is Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghirab, where the aliens are imprisoned simply because they are different than the majority, and their treatment is no different than the political prisoners raped and tortured in those prisoners. MNU is Haliburton, whose sole goal is proft no matter how many people have to be killed in order to raise the stock price. I haven’t seen the Bush character mentioned in any of the reviews, but I am sure there will be someone in the movie that will perfectly parallel Bush and his twisted desire to impose Christiantiy on the rest of the world while savaging anyone who dares dissent from his master plan. I am planning to see this movie but I am afraid that I will change my mind at the last minute because I do not want to relive the Bush years, which were by far the darkest in American history, and which have left us with the worst economy in American history and with a health care system in such shambles only the rich can afford even the most basic health care. In a way, I also see the aliens’ living conditions as synonymous with those faced by many Americans thanks to record foreclosures and millions of people that have joined the ranks of the homeless thanks to Bush and Cheney.
August 11th, 2009 at 4:18 am
Vinny B., you have no idea what you are talking about whatsoever. I am 100% your opposite on all things political, but that doesn’t even matter here, as the film HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. It is about South Africa, and the xenophobic atrocities that have been committed there. Neill Blomkamp grew up in South Africa. Sharlto Copley grew up in South Africa. The movie was shot in New Zealand and Africa. At no point was it supposed to be a commentary on Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, and at no point IS it a commentary on those two things. Where the hell you get off thinking it is amazes me, as you clearly have this idea in your head that everything has to be about the United States. Kind of xenophobic of you, isn’t it?
August 11th, 2009 at 4:20 am
Also, you said only the rich can afford basic health care? That is bull shit. I am barely above the poverty line and I can afford decent health care for my family. What is wrong with you? Were you even awake through the Bush years?
Or are you just another zombie blindly charging into the greatest amount of spending in the history of mankind? Actually, we all know the answer to that.
August 11th, 2009 at 4:23 am
And if you are still to stupid to believe me, read this interview with the film’s director, who backs up every single word of what I just said. But he is just the writer/director of the film, so I’m sure you know what it is about more than he does: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/42003
August 12th, 2009 at 7:41 am
Ok, bud. I was at first going to ask nicely why you use Guantanamo Bay as an example. Obviously, apartheid, racial injustices in the Old South, and religious segregation in the Mid East are much better examples. Gitmo was not a great place, especially due to the questionable events that occured within, but it certainly had nothing to do with the quarantine of people who were “different” than us. How many Muslims live in America? A lot more than Gitmo.
Well, that would have been my response. Then I read further and discovered that you are a brain-dead monkey just pounding on a keyboard. Either that, or you are a typical liberal with NO sensibilities whatsoever and clearly mentally handicapped. I guess calling you all these names is redundant when I use liberal as well lOLZ.
As for the movie, I am tremendously excited. I have been waiting for movie to come along for a while that has thrilling action as well as a relevant point to make.
August 12th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
yeah Vinny,
Bad doggy! Wrong tree! Bad doggy!
it certainly has nothing AT ALL to do with the states, it’s a sci-fi action film set in Africa, for heaven’s sake.
August 13th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
If you guys are interested in finding out if any of the cool science in the movie could happen in reality, go to http://www.district9facts.com. You can weigh in about what you think of the movie and get details on the behind-the-scenes science. I like the idea that a gun can only be used by whoever’s DNA it is registered to. What do you think?
August 24th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
This movie was excellent. I hope, hope, hope they do a pre-quill. There is plenty of story to tell. I also hope beyond the stars we do not see a crappy ABC sitcom starring the “Prawns” as a mixed up midwest family showing their daily trial and tribulations.
August 26th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
This movie is about humanity and life in general.
Some of the aliens (AKA Prawns) were being mistreated, but some of the aliens were also very hostile, violent, and wouldn’t tear a human to shreds if so inclined. So, what would you do in a situation like that? Would you want one living in your house? They were refugees from their own planet and society. They had no identifiable leader, and more importantly, they didn’t do anything to better themselves and instead, because a tremendous strain on our planet, to say the least.
But, as the movie also points out, not everyone in bad circumstances is necessarily bad and that being will do whatever it takes for them to rise above and break free from the chains of their own oppression.
You can look at it any way that you want, but the fact is that the film was created for an intended purpose, and for definitely more than one purpose.
Either way you call it, Blomkamp hit the nail dead-center of the nail and drove it completely through the board with District 9.
I can’t wait to see District 10! You know Christopher is pissed off that his species were being used as experiments by the humans. Clearly not all of the “Prawns” are lazy and ignorant. I expect Christopher to bring the fury back with him when he returns to earth to liberate his “people”…
August 26th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
That should be “and WOULD tear a human to shreds…”
“Some of the aliens (AKA Prawns) were being mistreated, but some of the aliens were also very hostile, violent, and wouldn’t tear a human to shreds if so inclined.”
September 7th, 2009 at 6:49 am
i think this movie couldn’t have tried to be more rasict than it was. It demonised South African and Nigerians most especially in many innapropiate and unreal ways. They took it way too far with the inter-speices prostitution and eating of body parts. They are basically trying to insinuate that Nigerians are barbaric and are of a lower class and will eat humans and untamed animals and are into beastiallity. Aside from that the movie had an unorganised plot and tried to much to catch your attention with fancy special effects rather than to provide a real solid story line.