“District 9,” an intelligent, thought-provoking, and suspenseful movie, has something for everyone. And like “The Hurt Locker,” it’s so good that I hope the Academy remembers it come Oscar nomination time. South Africa, Johannesburg specifically, is the setting for “District 9’s” allegorical layer. That country’s history of apartheid is never mentioned, but the implications of human behavior extends beyond that particular nation and is taken as representative of the planet as a whole. No human group is innocent – not the mostly white soldiers and bureaucrats who corral and abuse the aliens, called prawns because of their crustacean-like appearance, not the Nigerian gangsters who prey upon the prawns and exploit their addiction to cat food, not the people who clamor for prawn resettlement elsewhere. And as the movie progresses, we, along with the main character, Wilkus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley), discover M.N.U. doctors conducting horrific medical experiments reminiscent of Nazi Germany. Coupled with that is an agenda of corporate greed as M.N.U. (Multi-National United) has taken over the administration of the prawn population. As M.N.U. moves to resettle the aliens in a remote enclosure, they go to extremes to discover how alien weaponry works.
Co-writer (and director) Neill Blomkamp’s story not only has depth and provocative ideas but shoot-outs, explosions, and bloody violence. It’s a story of how a member of a dominant group becomes aware of the injustice inherent in a system that’s designed to subjugate others. And although Sharlto Copley is an unknown by American standards, his skill as an actor is what makes Wilkus’s discoveries and ultimate situation so poignant. “District 9” is such a singular movie-going experience that you might have to see it a second time. It’s refreshing when a movie asks you to think. 8/15/09
1 comment:
After seeing this film I had to sit and think for a while about what the filmmakers were trying to say. There are parts of this movie that reminded me of some of the atrocities of the Nazi's during WW2and parts that seemed a little like the handling of the American Indians in the 19th century. The most obvious memory it evoked was the apartheid government in South Africa last century. Much like the "separate but equal" attitudes of the U.S. in the south this story had the huge twist of the victims being aliens from another world. I liked this thought provoking movie even though it was unnecessarily violent and gruesome at times. The acting was very good and the set in South Africa was well done. I give the movie a 4 bagger (popcorn) out of a possible 5.
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