Written by Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell
Directed by Neill Blomkamp
“It’s gonna be quick. It’s gonna be clean. Best of all…it’s gonna be quiet.”
Here are THREE reasons why District 9 is a surprisingly satisfying film:
(1) The banality of evil: a phrase that entered pop culture ever since the trial of Nazi Adolf Eichmann. Nowhere is this attitude more perfectly captured than in District 9. Racism, prejudice, paternalism, willful blindness…the casual, pervasive dismissal of another race of creatures, and the subversion of humanity, that manages to encapsulate the ugliest aspects of mankind, especially in the last 100 years. It’s set in South Africa, but no sledgehammers are used to batter home its message. It never preaches, it never lectures…it simply displays human actions, and lets the audience decide what it wants to feel. The predominant feelings are discomfort & revulsion, and the South African location adds a taste of exoticism, without overwhelming the story with its own tragic historical legacy. Show-don’t-tell at its finest.
(2) Sharlto Copley as the protagonist, Wikus Van De Merwe. He seems like a nice guy, but he’s one of the greatest flawed, tragic heroes I’ve seen outside of Shakespeare. He is presented to us a squeaky-clean, geeky, ambitious technocrat…THEN we see the racism that bubbles to the surface. It’s followed by the terror, desperation, and selfishness of a suddenly-victimized man trying to recapture everything that was good in his life, to the exclusion of all else. Even when the truth of the treatment of aliens is revealed to him, he doesn’t embark on a crusade. He runs for his life, he hides, he blubs pathetically, and he’s willing (until the last moment) to sacrifice the lives of those who have hepled him out of kindness for his own selfish needs. It’s a performance of terrible, truly human beauty, and I hope it makes Mr. Copley a star. He is the heart of this film, and he’s brilliant!
(3) The faux documentary style of the film works…no mean feat, I can assure you. Other television shows and films have tried to emulate this style of delivery, and most of them have failed because they take too much time to convince you of the reality of the set-up. No such worries in District 9: the grainy film footage, the relaxed interviews to camera, and the lack of an overall, omniscient narrator combine to suck the viewer into its false reality. Then, in the blink of an eye, the film proceeds to seamlessly dissolve into straightforward storytelling, but the gritty, jerky camera shots remain. The mix of pseudo-fantasy and pseudo-reality is pitch-perfect, and the framing documentary structure only returns at the very end…again, in subtle, seamless, tragic fashion.
Here are TWO reasons why District 9 isn’t a perfect film:
(1) The aliens are run-of-the-mill biped knock-offs that seem to have been left over from a Starship Troopers sequel. There are some nice jokes made about their status in society, but only two are given any kind of character development…and many of those moments verge on cliche.
(2) The second half of the movie threatens to become a typical action-revenge runaround, especially the storming of the evil corporate/genetic experimentation headquarters. It’s only the sheer strength of Sharlto Copley’s performance — combined with the tragic last-minute relocation of Van De Merwe’s humanity — that manages to pull this out of the fire of glitzy Hollywood idiot-brained gloss.
Those are my only two objections to an otherwise superb & tragic film (the gore didn’t bother me, but it might make others queasy, so be warned). I didn’t know what to expect from this film…but I’m glad I went to see it. This is easily the great surprise of the summer, with more emotional resonance & savage, brilliant social commentary on display than you can get from a thousand versions of Transformers 2 or GIJoe. Any movie that leaves me in a contemplative, pensive mood always deserves my time. District 9 is such an archetypal film…all the more triumphant, considering it’s the work of a first-time film maker. Bravo.
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