Sunday, April 6, 2014

District 9 (2009)

Today's film comes to us from South Africa.  It's District 9  and it is mostly awesome.  It took me a few tries to get through the first half of it.  The first part is presented documentary style.
Aliens have landed in South Africa, and are rounded up by the humans and placed in government housing.  And we all know how nice those are.  In the documentary portion, we see the main character, Wikus Van De Merwe, as he and the other humans mistreat the aliens, known as prawns.  They even stomp and kill their eggs.  They have no respect for them. Throughout the film, we see how the prawns and humans interact with each other and it is apparent that this film is a thinly veiled metaphor for apartheid.  

How can the humans and aliens understand each other if they can't speak each other's languages?  Because, the aliens have been on Earth for 30 years.  Even though we can't replicate their clicking noises, and they apparently can't form words,  30 years is more than enough time to understand someone's language.


Later, Wikus touches a prawn's weapon and his arm starts turning into a prawn's arm!  How does touching an alien's weapon turn you into an alien?  That makes no kind of sense!!  I know that Wikus's transformation is central to the plot, but it does throw me off a bit.  It allows him to emphasize with the oppressed prawns and generally become a better person.

All of the action happens as we watch Wikus try to escape the South African government, who want to use him for experiments for their weapons, and the evil Nigerian thugs.  Ironically, his best allies turn out to be the prawns, the very people that he scorned earlier.

This movie is fast paced, full of action, and provides a glimpse of life in South Africa, even though it's sci-fi'ed up a lot.  I thoroughly enjoyed watching this movie.  It also had a nice mixture of special effects and CGI.  I will give it an 8/10.

1 comment:

  1. Lindsey!, were you watching the whole show? He was sprayed in the face by the concentrated Black Fluid that Christopher Johnson had collected. He would have transformed anyway, but the injury he received caused that particular tissue, his hand and arm where he was struck, transformed more quickly, and the bandage hid that till the Dr. opened the bandages. I will check out your site here, but for now just on D9, I been looking for a place to dissect this movie, as I think there is an absolute plethora of hidden symbology in it. I mean deep stuff,and from Neil Blomkamp the director. If you are interested and have the time I would be glad to explain some of the happenings. Not that you are wrong about things, but if you missed certain parts you may come be suseptible to misgivings. I see you caught alot of the alegory, but the apartheid thing is absolutely correct, yet only the surface of what I feel is going on here. Plus Neil's and Sharlto's following work seems to be also full of deep multi-layered meaning. You look very industrious and quite busy, so if I am not a bother, feel free to interact. Later.

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