District 9
Director: Neill Blomkamp
Writer: Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell
2009
District 9 is unlike any film I’ve seen and that is always a good thing. It takes place in Johannesburg, South Africa where an alien ship landed twenty years earlier and has yet to leave – it remains hovering above what is known as District 9, the compound where the aliens are forced to stay. Coming out of South Africa, it is hard not to read undertones of a statement on apartheid (the aliens are the ones segregated, mistreated, forcefully evicted from their homes and put into compounds made especially to keep them away from the humans). Now, the director Neill Blomkamp has said the film is not a statement on apartheid so I will not read too much into the film, however we are all products of our environment so it would make sense if some of his own experiences are embedded into the film, directly or indirectly.
Without giving too much away because I don’t want to blow the film for you, here’s a short synopsis. District 9 follows Wickus (played by Sharlto Copley in his first major film role), an employee at Multi-National United – an organization designed to keep aliens segregated from the human population. As he is evicting the aliens from their homes in District 9, he crosses paths with one alien named Christopher and they soon come to depend on each other whether they like it or not. I have never seen an action, or science fiction or any film for that matter like District 9. It is seriously non-stop on the edge of your seat suspense – literally, from start to finish. There is no pause or lull in the story in order for you to catch your bearings or let your mind wander away from what’s onscreen, like in all other films. Instead, this film’s pacing allows you to be drawn into the film entirely and keeps your attention for the whole running time.
As a first time director of a huge feature film, Neill Blomkamp shows a lot of promise and I am excited to see what he does next. Also a relative first timer is Sharlto Copely, and I must say the man can act. If I didn’t already know I would have assumed he was a veteran actor with a ton of experience. He is just brilliant in this film and handles the pressure of carrying an entire film very well. I absolutely loved this film and would recommend it to anyone because it is so fresh and unique. There are many dramatic and emotional layers to District 9, it is not just an action film about aliens invading earth, it’s a film about humanity and a damn good one too.
