Dir. Neill Blomkamp, US/New Zealand, 2009, 112 mins,
Cast: Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, David James
Review by Carol Allen
Like much of the best science fiction “District 9″ examines the moral and other challenges of the real world in a fantasy scenario. Its central premise is that twenty years ago a space ship carrying a large group of confused and starving aliens was stranded in the sky over Johannesburg. The aliens were put into a refugee camp , District 9, which is now a squalid shanty town, whose inhabitants are treated with fear and suspicion by the humans outside, preyed on by gangsters and about to be forcibly relocated by an international corporation, which is experimenting on them in an attempt to discover the secrets of their bio technological weapons. The parallels not only with South Africa’s apartheid history but with the European attitude to refugee asylum seekers or “illegal aliens”, as some term them, is plain to see. The only difference is the fact that the victims here are non human.
Director Blomkamp, a South African now resident in Canada and making his first feature film under the guiding hand of Peter Jackson as producer, has set the story in his native land, where black and white are united in their bigotry towards the admittedly ugly aliens, known contemptuously as “Prawns” because of their appearance, while the gangsters who exploit the aliens are Nigerian. Initially the story is told in mock news/documentary form, with academic pundits filling us in on the background and history of the situation, while news cameras cover the forcible relocation story, though after a while that technique is largely abandoned as the story develops. In charge of the relocation is Wikus (Copley), a nerdy and self important minor official in the Department of Alien Affairs, who’s only got the job because his father in law is head of the corporation, who are after the aliens’ weapon secrets. But when Wikus in his zeal meets with an accident in the improvised laboratory of one of the aliens and finds himself becoming part Prawn, he too becomes a hunted victim and ironically the moral centre of the film. His only hope of survival is the alien scientist know as Christopher Jonson (Cope), who with his small son is working secretly to save his people.
This is a highly entertaining and engrossing film, carefully consistent in the logic of its scenario and with plenty of action. It is though most of all a thoughtful parable about the way we treat our fellow human beings, if they are to us any way “alien”. One is left with the conclusion that humanity itself can be a pretty disgusting species.
