Social
fiction is the term I just made up to describe the type of genre “District 9”
falls into; the science fiction movie that is not just robots fighting each
other, time travel, or space racing. No, this genre is about social commentary
while using the medium of science fiction to showcase it; hence social fiction.
Movies included in this genre include “2001: A Space Odyssey”, “Planet of the
Apes”, “Gattaca”, and arguably “Avatar” and “The Matrix”. “District 9” is the
sort of movie that doesn’t stick with you after it is over because of dazzling
visuals or popcorn entertainment, but it stays because of the idea that it
portrays.
Opening
with plenty of pseudo documentary footage explaining the premise, “District 9”
shows us how an alien ship landing in Johannesburg South Africa, without the
ability to take off again, affects the lifestyle of the citizens, and how the
humans deal with the situation over the years. The humans basically treat the aliens
so badly it brings segregation of colored people to memory and even the
holocaust when the humans kill a lot of them while sticking them in a camp
especially for aliens, District 9. Since the humans are fed up with the aliens,
they order them to relocate over to district 10 and the person chosen to serve
the eviction notices is a man named Wikus, whose mannerisms show us a kind and
outgoing spirit, but who deep inside is as bigoted and prejudiced as every
human that has had enough of these aliens. He uses the derogatory term “Prawn”
to refer to an alien which mirrors the terms used today to describe colored
people.
I applaud
the film for giving us a main character that is unlikable to begin with. It is
something very hard to do because an audience usually doesn’t want to follow
the “Bad Guy” around for most of the movie, and yet Wikus, for the purposes of
this review, is the bad guy. I’m not big on giving away information about the
plot of a movie because I have found out that I tend to like a film more when I
haven’t seen the trailer than when I have, but everyone watching the movie will
probably work out that Wikus isn’t the same man by the end of the film, his
views have changed, and he develops sympathy for the aliens (or rather
empathy).
Even
though the film is primarily a statement on racism and bigotry, that isn’t to
say that it doesn’t have its share of robot fights, explosions, and alien
gunfire but they are all done out of necessity to the plot rather out of hungry
eyes. The effects utilized to create the aforementioned action scenes are
convincing and very gritty; the spaceship looks rusty and old and the aliens
themselves look like giant cockroaches. After you watch this movie can you
guess the budget of the film judging solely on what you see? Obviously that is
a rhetorical question since I would only ask it if it was either very high or
very low. 30 million, for those of you who don’t know that much about film
marketing and economics, is nothing for a science fiction blockbuster like this
one and yet it pulled it off very well even managing to get a nomination for an
academy award for best visual effects. To put things into perspective, “The
Social Network” which didn’t have any special effects, cost about 40 million to
make. Now that is impressive if you think about it.
A few
things I didn’t like about the film the first time I saw it turned me around
the second time. Ironically though the one thing that annoyed me slightly was
something I actually enjoyed the first time around; the excessive pseudo
documentary footage. It can get a bit tedious at times but after a while you
get used to it. So overall my enjoyment of the movie remains the same: This is
a fantastic story about xenophobia with great effects and plenty more to like.
Make sure to watch it with an open mind and an empty stomach though, because
the themes are quite strong and the “Schindler’s List” type violence might be
quite hard to swallow.
9/10 (Fitting Right?)
But what about you? What other science fiction movies do you
think bare a lot of social commentary? Click here to cast your vote.
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