In 1991, Nelson Mandela was finally released from prison after years of persecution at the hands of South Africa's white minority. If District 9 is to be believed, his crime was being a lobster from outer space.
That is more or less the concept behind the South African science-fiction film, an amalgamation of "live" news coverage, cryptic flash-forward interviews, and an omniscient camera from 29-year-old newcomer and native Afrikaner Neill Blomkamp.
Fifteen years after its dissolution, apartheid remains interminably linked to modern-day South Africa. The institution of systematic racism oppressed 80 percent of its inhabitants from 1948 to 1994; it forced South Africa's majority black population into slums rife with drug use and gang activity and sent its most vocal opponents to prison or a shallow grave. If you were black in apartheid South Africa, you were something other, smaller, poorer, less than human.
District 9 takes this truth and makes it quite literal; in place of disenfranchised blacks, the oppressed members of South African society are now towering crustacean-like aliens recovered 27 years ago from their crippled mothership hovering over Johannesburg. In the years since, the "prawns," as they're derisively called by humans, have mired in filth, descended into lives of petty crime, and formed an addiction to canned cat food. As a result, the prawns face eviction out of their shanty homes in the titular district.
The man in charge of their relocation is the criminally meek bureaucrat Wikus van de Merwe, played by the virtually anonymous Johannesburg native Sharlto Copley. Wikus, a spineless cubicle dweller whose position of responsibility is unwisely bestowed upon him out of nepotism, leads an accompanying television crew through District 9 as he delivers eviction notices, confiscates alien contraband, and cheerfully burns a house of alien eggs to the ground. Thanks to his clumsy encounter with a seemingly innocuous alien artifact, Wikus finds himself on the run from his employers and is forced to fall in with an intelligent prawn named Christopher Johnson.
The film's attention to infinitesimal physical detail--like the fuzzy feedback of a lapel microphone brushing angrily against Wikus' sweater vest--not only shows respect for the audience's collective intelligence, but heightens the realism to a level not typical of fiction. Characters stumble through their words and create inordinately long silences. Wikus constantly pleads with his cameraman to ensure that his gaffes end up on the cutting room floor. Blomkamp wisely phases these intentional hiccups out as the film enters its second half and the viewer's attention priorities sharpen.
Few media provide as public a stage for a talented newcomer's arrival as cinema. Boogie Nights marked the debut of 28-year-old Paul Thomas Anderson; Memento introduced audiences to 30-year-old Christopher Nolan. Similarly, District 9 could be remembered in the future as the film that propelled Blomkamp to stardom. Though the beautifully-rendered aliens and their ship bear the trademark of producer Peter Jackson's Weta Workshop (which shared CGI duties with Image Engine of Vancouver), the film's visual style belongs unmistakably to the young Afrikaner. The faux documentary might not be Blomkamp's unique creation, but as films like the Spanish horror title [●REC] have shown us, when executed well, the style makes for a remarkable film. Like Michael Mann and his shades of blue or Steven Spielberg and his familial tension or Martin Scorsese and his deadly foreshadowing, District 9 carries a signature.
But the true star of the film, both in the electricity of his performance as well as his mere perpetuity on the screen, is Copley's blathering, incompetent Wikus. As the film's de facto hero, Wikus inspires pity at best and disgust at worst for most of the film. But his bland contempt for the aliens and clueless effort to evict them slowly dissolves into commiseration as he is personally tortured by his father-in-law and further into reluctant admiration as he searches for some semblance of a spine.
District 9 is a science-fiction film. What else could it be? It's two hours of aliens and spaceships and secret government torture chambers. But it's also a biting, incisive glance at South Africa's sordid past through the eyes of a native son. Neill Blomkamp's debut is a thrilling, hilarious, and altogether terrific film; more importantly, though, it's one of the most original stories--regardless of genre--to make its way onto the screen in a long time.
FIVE STARS
That is more or less the concept behind the South African science-fiction film, an amalgamation of "live" news coverage, cryptic flash-forward interviews, and an omniscient camera from 29-year-old newcomer and native Afrikaner Neill Blomkamp.
Fifteen years after its dissolution, apartheid remains interminably linked to modern-day South Africa. The institution of systematic racism oppressed 80 percent of its inhabitants from 1948 to 1994; it forced South Africa's majority black population into slums rife with drug use and gang activity and sent its most vocal opponents to prison or a shallow grave. If you were black in apartheid South Africa, you were something other, smaller, poorer, less than human.
District 9 takes this truth and makes it quite literal; in place of disenfranchised blacks, the oppressed members of South African society are now towering crustacean-like aliens recovered 27 years ago from their crippled mothership hovering over Johannesburg. In the years since, the "prawns," as they're derisively called by humans, have mired in filth, descended into lives of petty crime, and formed an addiction to canned cat food. As a result, the prawns face eviction out of their shanty homes in the titular district.
The man in charge of their relocation is the criminally meek bureaucrat Wikus van de Merwe, played by the virtually anonymous Johannesburg native Sharlto Copley. Wikus, a spineless cubicle dweller whose position of responsibility is unwisely bestowed upon him out of nepotism, leads an accompanying television crew through District 9 as he delivers eviction notices, confiscates alien contraband, and cheerfully burns a house of alien eggs to the ground. Thanks to his clumsy encounter with a seemingly innocuous alien artifact, Wikus finds himself on the run from his employers and is forced to fall in with an intelligent prawn named Christopher Johnson.
The film's attention to infinitesimal physical detail--like the fuzzy feedback of a lapel microphone brushing angrily against Wikus' sweater vest--not only shows respect for the audience's collective intelligence, but heightens the realism to a level not typical of fiction. Characters stumble through their words and create inordinately long silences. Wikus constantly pleads with his cameraman to ensure that his gaffes end up on the cutting room floor. Blomkamp wisely phases these intentional hiccups out as the film enters its second half and the viewer's attention priorities sharpen.
Few media provide as public a stage for a talented newcomer's arrival as cinema. Boogie Nights marked the debut of 28-year-old Paul Thomas Anderson; Memento introduced audiences to 30-year-old Christopher Nolan. Similarly, District 9 could be remembered in the future as the film that propelled Blomkamp to stardom. Though the beautifully-rendered aliens and their ship bear the trademark of producer Peter Jackson's Weta Workshop (which shared CGI duties with Image Engine of Vancouver), the film's visual style belongs unmistakably to the young Afrikaner. The faux documentary might not be Blomkamp's unique creation, but as films like the Spanish horror title [●REC] have shown us, when executed well, the style makes for a remarkable film. Like Michael Mann and his shades of blue or Steven Spielberg and his familial tension or Martin Scorsese and his deadly foreshadowing, District 9 carries a signature.
But the true star of the film, both in the electricity of his performance as well as his mere perpetuity on the screen, is Copley's blathering, incompetent Wikus. As the film's de facto hero, Wikus inspires pity at best and disgust at worst for most of the film. But his bland contempt for the aliens and clueless effort to evict them slowly dissolves into commiseration as he is personally tortured by his father-in-law and further into reluctant admiration as he searches for some semblance of a spine.
District 9 is a science-fiction film. What else could it be? It's two hours of aliens and spaceships and secret government torture chambers. But it's also a biting, incisive glance at South Africa's sordid past through the eyes of a native son. Neill Blomkamp's debut is a thrilling, hilarious, and altogether terrific film; more importantly, though, it's one of the most original stories--regardless of genre--to make its way onto the screen in a long time.
FIVE STARS
