District 9

District 9

Director - Neill Blomkamp

Writers - Neill Blomkamp & Terri Tatchell

Stars - Sharlto Copley, David James, Jason Cope

 

One of those films that I enjoyed much more the second time around. When I first saw it upon release, I was eager for its potential: its premise being aliens coming to earth and receiving the treatment and response that typically greets refugees. There’s no subtlety in this text and I usually take such obvious thematic presentation as I would punk polemics and rap rants. What I remember upon seeing it for the first time at the cinema was disappointment that it just descended into a shoot ‘em up fisticuffs, and some credibility doubts with them just breaking in and finding the lab they wanted within about five minutes. The sharpness of its premise stunted by traditional genre pleasures.

 

But this time around, with expectations aligned with what I knew was going to happen, I enjoyed those genre pleasures, was less inclined to dwell on doubts and criticism because I tuned in more to the b-movie action tropes. More of a ‘Robocop’ or even ‘Westworld’ frequency. The satire is still there, but a little lost to firefights. What there is is plenty of sympathy for the aliens and criticism for institutional and general racism.

 

Presented with the awesome reality of aliens, the human race just reverts to xenophobia. But also, the presentation of aliens as refugees with all the social and political complexities involved is not how movie aliens are usually presented: this is a far cry from the awe-inspiring contemplation of, say, ‘Arrival’. It’s not a deep discussion of the subject, because this has the pell-mell motion of action b-movie, so you won’t get the narrative of what the black and indigenous communities think and feel, or how their social status has been affected by the aliens’ arrival. But there is an overall condemnation of the marginalisation, exploitation and the bigoty visited on the aliens which keeps a live current throughout. It certainly portrays a far too plausible and recognisable reaction (‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ is a pipedream, its positivity childish in comparison). However, the resolution that it’s a good thing that the aliens go back to where they came from is unhelpful. It’s the context that resonates rather than any questions or answers.

Once it’s clear ‘District 9’ won’t be a deep discourse on the subject of the disenfranchised, what we are left with is the tribulations of Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley), rise and downfall. Like the first infamous segment in ‘The Twilight Zone Movie’, it’s a tale where the guy facilitating violent discrimination with a clipboard and prejudicial legalise finds roles reversed. In this case, he inhales something extraterrestrial and transforms, via a body-horror interlude, into an alien. He’s a scumbag happy to exploit and wallow is his role in the Hostile Environment and evicting the aliens who meets his comeuppance. He takes a long time to redeem himself and even then, it’s more a case of just desserts, although the film does give some sympathy.

It’s conveyed at first through documentary and found-footage style, building up pictures from news reports, etc, as Wikus is happy to front fly-on-the-wall propaganda. But the film is happy to dump that pretence as action demands, although it never relinquishes hand-held. And it’s the image of the spaceship hanging over Johannesburg is likely to be the chief lingering image.

 

The aliens are great: some smart, some stupid, some lumbering, some insect-elegant, gullible, forlorn, aggressive, etc. This could be seen as inconsistency, but the positive interpretation is that they are recognisably as myriad as any other species. After all, we don’t know any tier system or hierarchy they may have (the intellects and the workers, for example). Both cookie and intimidating, persecuted and troublesome. They are a convincing early-ish display of dominant digital effects by Weta Workshop – it’s a Peter Jackson production – that still hold up. It’s not above going for the cute kid alien angle either.

 

It suffers from some of the weaknesses of b-movie action – why speechify when and not shoot? Let’s take it on trust that he’ll just remember the way to that lab – and perhaps it doesn’t quite jump from its distinctive, potent premise as highly as it could, but it’s fun, quick, and pertinent enough. Blomkamp and Coley arguably have never quite met the early promise of this debut, but it still maintains its position as a genre favourite.