[Movie] District 9

When aliens come to earth in movies we usually see them stop in America. We’ve had the occasional one stop in other places, but America is the main choice. Not sure why, but it’s Hollywood, America is the centre of the world. When they land they are normally greeted with open hostility, or they are here to invade us, and we fight back.

District 9 Poster

This time it’s different. The aliens not only stop somewhere that isn’t America, Johannesburg in South Africa to be precise. The hostile reception is slightly more subtle than all out militarised warfare with the aliens, and the aliens are equally not that interested in killing humans. They arrived in 1990 and were housed in a special refugee camp. We jump forward twenty years, and in 2010 and Multi-National United are trying to evict the aliens from what has become a slum and move them further away from Jo’burg.

It’s shot in a documentary style and follows the story of one particular MNU employee on a very interesting journey that helps him learn far more about these aliens, referred to as Prawns because, as the protagonist puts it, “you can’t say they don’t look like that, that’s what they look like, right? They look like prawns.”

This is a wonderful piece of work from Neill Blomkamp. Yes, that is the director who was attached to the Halo film. This film comes from Peter Jackson, also attached to Halo, offering Bomkamp $30 million to make whatever film he wanted.

Blomkamp should have made this film. It is a deep film with a strong message. It is obvious how the story stems from Blomkamp’s childhood in apartheid South Africa. The inclusion of Nigerians in the film selling weapons, food and sex to the aliens has drawn some criticism, Nigerians claiming that this is reinforcing negative stereotypes and xenophobic. I would have to disagree. I can see where the point comes from, but look at it from a different way. Instead of this film saying “Look, Nigerians would eat aliens, and sell women for sex.” it is slightly deeper than that. Yes they are Nigerians, but more importantly they are human. The way they treat these aliens is considered wrong and makes them seem like animals. Whilst it is the aliens who seem to have a much greater sense of camaraderie. But whilst there is the obviousness of this from the Nigerians, there is also some from the other people in this film.

The film comes out of Hollywood. This means that it has that Hollywood touch. It is certainly a film where handheld shooting comes into its own, however it has the big gunfights. The problem is that the $30 million budget Hollywood part of the film almost drowns out the film’s message with its flashness. It’s a shame, because the message is the big point of this film, not the gunfights.

I also want to mention the BBFC’s rating of 15. I’m not sure what they watched to give the classification “Contains one use of very strong language and strong bloody violence”. There was, at least as far as I noticed quite a few uses of “The ‘F’ Word” in a South African accent making it sound like “Fok” or “Fook”. Apparently this doesn’t constitute strong language. The “strong bloody violence” is also slightly stronger than that implies. I would question whether this should, perhaps, be classified an 18.

This is a good film. More than that perhaps, it is a great film. It isn’t, however, quite a brilliant film. I know I’ve moaned about how the “Hollywood” element of the film over took what was, essentially the “human” story. Yes there are some Hollywood films that stand up, and yes the Hollywood element adds something to this film, but it also distracts.

I thoroughly recommend the film. I enjoyed it greatly and it does have a very strong message. Sharlto Copley provides a wonderful performance and the shooting style is perfect for this film. The message had to shout to be heard over the gunfire, but it’s one we should listen to.

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