Socially Relevant Sci-fi

Wikus bullies the "prawns" -- Picture courtesy of Key Creatives

by blogSpotter
District 9 has been done to death in a recent rash of movie magazine reviews. I can toss in my own layperson views, although I don't know that I can approach the insights of Time or Entertainment Weekly. I went to see D9 last weekend at the urging of various geek friends. Geek by the way has expanded in meaning -- it really includes anyone who likes high tech gadgets or sci-fi pop culture. Doesn’t have to be an unfashionable nerd by necessity anymore.

I digress from this interesting sci-fi, socio-commentary that was directed and written by 29 year-old newcomer Neill Blomkamp. D9 is set in contemporary Johannesburg, South Africa. In this story, it seems that an alien space ship has been stalled over the city for some 25 years. The crustacean-like aliens (derisively called “prawns” by humans) have become ill from space toxins and waylaid helplessly. They’re rounded up and held in a detention camp called District 9. Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley), is a human field operative charged with evicting the prawns to a more secure environment called District 10.

Wikus is a likable, blustery, over self-confident man unaware of the dangers involved -- he’s in way over his head. In one home raid, he handles a cylinder full of alien “fluid” and becomes infected. This begins a bizarre process whereby he starts to mutate from human to alien. When his fellow humans see what’s happened, they see him as no longer human -- they want to harvest his organs and use him for ghastly experiments.

At this point, the hunter becomes the hunted and Wikus forms a necessary bond with one of the more in-the-know prawns. It turns out that this prawn was the ship engineer and knows how to restore Wikus to human form -- if Wikus will help him recover the fluid cylinder and reconnect with the hovering mother ship. I will leave the synopsis here to avoid spoiling the ending. The movie is fascinating in the way it turns the mirror on ourselves. The prawns look surprisingly decent and moral; the humans look greedy, manipulative and blood-thirsty by comparison. In some ways, the treatment of the aliens calls to mind the Nazi experiments of Dr. Mengeles.

I hyperbolically told a friend it’s “the best sci-fi movie ever”. Upon reflection, there is probably a roster of movies that could contend for that title. But District 9 is certainly in the running. Note -- for a “low-budget” 30 million dollar movie, there are spectacular special effects. And this low-budget sleeper already surprised the honchos of the entertainment industry by bringing in $37,000,000 its first weekend. Not bad for a first foray by the extremely young director, Mr. Blomkamp.

© 2009 blogSpotter