District 9 review

Watching District 9 is like witnessing the first atomic bomb explode over Hiroshima and living through the nuclear onslaught to talk about it.

The movie is one gigantic message about humanity’s past, present and uncertain future. It’s delivered through a science-fiction wrapper that slowly but surely peels away to reveal what lurks underneath. The movie is not for the fans of Star Trek; instead, it’s as plot-intensive as “Syriana”, as violent as “Alien” and as soul-changing as “Enemy mine”.

In the slums of Johannesburg lives a stranded alien creed – creatures devoid of their natural environment and lacking basic resources such as food and water. While their broken down spaceship hovers in the South African sky, they become the focus of the nation’s interest due to their origin and prawn-like looks. Gambling, prostitution and a food & weapons black market is controlled by Nigerian gangs that exploit the aliens’ needs and their technological skills. A government agency, MNU, secretly experiments with these aliens in an attempt to utilize their powerful pulse-beam weapons that cannot be triggered by humans.

Twenty years after the aliens established themselves in the “District 9” ghetto, public outcry forces the MNU to set up a new facility 200km away from the city, where 1.5 million aliens are to be housed. The task of eviction is given to Wikus van der Merwe, a government official who is eager to deliver MNU’s message via the use of a special task force, using violence on aliens that refuse to agree to their eviction. Wilkus is initially driven by duty but soon gets infected by a substance that triggers a DNA mutation; his arm changes to that of an alien and from that point onwards his view of the unwelcome creed he’s trying to evict is altered forever.

The parallels are evident: the District 9 alien camps are reminiscent of the segregation in the ghettos of Johannesburg where the native blacks resided during the apartheid era in South Africa. The alien community has no hope, no future, no escape from the dismal present; other than looking up in the sky at their frozen link to their home planet. Racism is a disease and it jumps from skin color to race to creed; the poor South African community finds themselves in the position of the oppressor and exercise their discontent towards the aliens with the same hatred that the whites once displayed against them.

The metamorphosis of the main character, from a man to a creature that is half-human, half-alien presents through the better half of the movie the struggle of the human race to understand its purpose of existence. The physical changes are as powerful as the mental evolution of the mutated Wikus van der Merwe – from his agony to reverse the mutation, all the way to his effort to protect the alien scientist and his child; initially as his only hope of survival but eventually as a form of understanding the pain and despair of an unwelcome species.

District 9 ends with a hopeful message that both shocks and helps release the dirt and steam built up during its explosive visuals & atmospheric soundtrack – just like the mushroom cloud of a nuclear bomb. This detonation is that of hope, however, not of destruction – a hope of eventual understanding and coexistence  between dissimilar races and creeds.

Watch it expecting nothing – you’ll get plenty in return.