|
From the production office of Peter Jackson, comes South
Africa’s first blockbuster and a calling card to the world, that south
of the equator in the African continent there are film-makers of
distinguishable quality, by creating a cinematic achievement of note
and distinction in this calendar year. District 9 tells the story of an alien mothership that arrives over Johannesburg in 1989, and just stayed there. Upon entering the ship, South African military discover a million malnourished aliens or ‘prawns’ to give them the film’s slang term owing to the physical attributes they share with the crustaceans. In the present day, we follow Wikus van de Merwe (a star turn from newcomer, Sharlto Copley) in a docu-style format as he visits District 9 to serve the tenants with eviction papers. The MNU (Multi-National United) group are moving the prawns to a veritable concentration camp 240km outside of Johannesburg. The framing device at the start has multiple talking heads talking of Wikus as we meet him, building up a sense of this desk-jockey we first encounter and then painting a story of his tale. Then we follow him as he serves eviction papers intercut with CCTV coverage of the incidents and the third person camera for action; as when he sprays himself with a fluid that causes a transformation. Wikus starts to combine his DNA with that of a prawn, and so becomes valuable to MNU as an experiment and a weapon. Though being original because of its setting and the use of a ‘nerd’ as the hero, it does wear its influences proudly on its sleeve – ‘Independence Day’ (hovering alien craft), ‘The Fly’ (body horror), ‘Robocop’ (armour), ‘Alien Nation’ (social integration of aliens and humans) – but to its credit it does an about face once Wikus becomes a prawn. With the fear of being outcast from his family and work, Wikus adopts the life of a fugitive permanently on the run and starts living on cat food and returns to District 9 – the one place he knows he can hide. There, Wikus encounters Christopher Johnson, an intelligent prawn, he had previously tried to evict earlier in the film. Remembering each other, Wikus discovers an alien craft under Christopher’s hut. Chris can save Wikus if they re-gain possession of the alien fluid that Wikus had confiscated and taken to MNU – they agree that it is a suicide mission. Coupled with the unwanted distraction of the Nigerian gang who want to cut off Wikus’ arm for mythical purposes and the warfare that follows. The film has the three act structure – development and fly on the wall territory in the first act; then it becomes a body horror and the horror of realisation of the state Wikus is in followed by the final act that becomes a war film – everyone is against Wikus and Chris as they try to get the alien ship back up to the mothership. The about face I mentioned earlier was that our sympathies are not with the prawns but the dark side of corporate military action – who experiment on aliens to gain an advantage of using alien weapons. A social comment on the migration of immigrants into your surroundings, speaks more like the fact that we are all immigrants and all searching for a place to call home. More philosophical than overtly political in its subtext; it does not forget that it is a science-fiction film with generic conventions to re-produce and this comes with its shoot-em up action sequences and believable CGI action photography. This is helped by the impressive performance by Copley as Wikus; the believability of ‘wrong man, wrong place, and wrong time’ is wonderful and he still has moments of restraint and dynamic power. The hero does not have to be a beefcake; by having a weak man as the lead speaks volumes and makes us root for him immediately. And simple, effective use of location, make-up and set design makes you at times forget you are watching a South African action film. One minor (racist) point, the need of subtitling the Nigerians is demeaning; you get what he is saying and place the blacks on the same human entry level as the prawns – which will draw unnecessary accusations of racism to a picture, which tries to point out racism in its most obvious forms. The film ends on a downbeat note, but the built in promise of a return in 3 years time in the cinematic narrative means that the anticipation of District 10 in 2012 will be worth waiting for. Recommended and Approved, District 9 is worth the entry fee.
|
