District 9 Review

In 1982, an alien spaceship arrives over Johannesburg, South Africa. The South African government, in response, relocates the aliens into a camp called District 9. By 2002, though, District 9 has become a slum, and the local humans are quick to characterise the “prawns” as criminals and parasites. The government orders yet another relocation, this time hiring arms manufacturer Multi-National United to do the dirty work.

The opening of Niell Blomkamp’s sci-fi thriller District 9 resembles- by design, not by accident- a trailer for a documentary. We are introduced by way of mock interviews to several citizens of Johannesburg, including scientists, doctors, policemen and our protagonist, Wikus van de Merwe. Wikus is an employee of Multi-National United as well as the husband of Tania, the daughter of MNU executive Piet Smit. This may or may not have something to do with Smit’s decision to put Wikus in charge of the relocation team. However, Wikus’ job doesn’t go as planned and he unknowingly gets infected by alien fluid. When he becomes violently ill later that day, he suspects something as amiss; as his body mutates, he realizes that he is turning into something he once despised- a “prawn”. Hunted by his former colleagues, he hides in the one plays he knows nobody will look for him- District 9. From there, Wikus finds himself working with his former victims to expose MNU’s evil deeds.

Making no attempts to hide its allegory of apartheid, Niell Blomkamp’s feature debut deals head-on with issues like xenophobia and systematic oppression that are sadly still relevant today, not just in South Africa but across the whole world. The complaints levelled against the aliens by the people of Johannesburg bear an eerie resemblance to many a conversation about Middle Eastern refugees that can be heard in every Wetherspoons from Brighton to Inverness.

It’s extremely hard to find fault with this movie, which is very impressive indeed when one considers that film only had a budget of $30 million. Sharlto Copley in the lead role gives a performance that is so nuanced and believable you’d never have guessed that he had never acted professionally before; he also improvised most of his dialogue, again to such a high standard that it could plausibly have come from the pen of a more experience screenwriter. The film’s primary antagonist is Colonel Koobus Venter, a brutal and sadistic mercenary. David James, portraying Colonel Venter, conveys his character’s wanton cruelty in such a way as to make you break out in sweat every time he appears on screen. Some may accuse James of overplaying the part but even if he does, his presence so enhances the film’s atmosphere that he can be forgiven in a heartbeat.

The production design is also excellent, with the titular slum’s rusty brown hues emphasizing how grim life is for its residents. Its appearance- shacks by the hundred constructed from scrap metal- immediately signals it as a slum, a hovel, an area reserved for society’s most oppressed outcasts. The rest of Johannesburg is portrayed only as a modest improvement. Dull skyscrapers dominate while the residential areas are largely presented as lower class. The notable exception to that is the van de Merwe residence, a clean suburban abode that embodies Wikus’ wealth and privilege — a stark contrast to the squalor which he has helped impose on the aliens.

Trent Opaloch’s cinematography is up to the standards of Hollywood’s best. Particularly outstanding are the aerial shots of the district, which demonstrate the scale of the poverty and suffering within it. The lighting, too, is very good. Rather than going for a darker look the film is a very bright one. The high-key lighting of the film denies Wikus the cover of night by which he can hide from the authorities; he must evade them in broad daylight.

Clinton Shorter’s metallic score creates by equal part a sense of dread and a deep feeling of sorrow; the vocalizing sounds distinctly mournful. This emphasizes not only the danger facing Wikus but also the tragedy of District 9 in a world where the powers that be are apathetic to its welfare. In addition, despite Clinton Shorter being Canadian by birth the music has a distinctly African sound to it, demonstrating Shorter’s dedication to the film’s sense of place and atmosphere.

Perhaps, though, District 9‘s greatest strength is in its special effects. Not only do they deserve full marks for how seamlessly the CGI blends into the live action footage, it is in the visual effects that the film’s themes of discrimination and xenophobia are most cleverly explored. Rather than going for a “cute” alien species as a lesser filmmaker would have done, director Niell Blomkamp and his team take the road less travelled by: the extra-terrestrial inhabitants of District 9 are ugly, scary and insect-like. Had the aliens been adorable, the film could easily have strayed into sentimentality; meanwhile, the hatred directed towards them by South Africa’s ordinary people would have seemed implausible. By invoking a negative initial reaction towards the aliens in his audience, Blomkamp reminds us that the perpetrators of atrocities (apartheid, slavery, the Holocaust) aren’t just faceless bogey-men- given enough psychological justification, we too could be the baddies.

The film has received criticism from some viewers for promoting a “white saviour narrative” (a trope where a white hero saves helpless characters of colour, typically from other, less “enlightened” white people). However, I personally am not of the view that it is a particularly egregious example, as unlike the stereotypical white saviour story, the oppressed “prawns” do possess agency of their own. In addition, far from becoming a knight in shining armour in the tradition of Atticus Finch, Wikus van de Merwe is no hero in the conventional sense. Yes, he comes to empathize more with the aliens, but his primary motivation is not altruism but rather self-preservation via a “quid pro quo” arrangement. Meanwhile, unlike To Kill a Mockingbird‘s Tom Robinson, the alien Christopher Johnson (with whom Wikus finds himself working) proves himself a capable ally.

If you love sci-fi, watch District 9. If you don’t love sci-fi, watch it all the same. An incredibly well-executed film that any self-respecting indie filmmaker would kill to have been a part of.