These past two months, what I’ve been watching wasn’t movies — it was loneliness… Finally, though, I watched something with a bit of substance — last night I saw District 9.
In 1990, a massive spaceship appeared in the sky above Earth. People were terrified, yet wildly curious. After a tense stretch of waiting, the alien ship still showed no sign of activity. Humanity finally crept closer and forced its way inside the cabin, only to find countless aliens. They were hideous to look at, like shrimp, and in extremely poor health — weak and feeble. It turned out this was a group of alien refugees. Eventually the people of Earth took them in and quarantined them in an area of Johannesburg, South Africa, a place called “District 9.” After 20 years of reproduction, the alien refugee population had swollen to 1.8 million, and conflicts with the surrounding humans kept flaring up. More and more people were calling for the “prawns” to be driven off Earth.
MNU (Multi-National United), after consultations, decided to relocate the alien refugees to an even more remote area. Wikus (Sharlto Copley), an agent in MNU’s Alien Affairs Department, is put in charge of the relocation. During the mobilization Wikus is arrogant and offhand, clashing with local residents again and again. In the end he pays for his behavior — the aliens’ mysterious fluid infects him, and Wikus slowly transforms into an alien…
Very good impression. The story is unusual, the performances are spot-on, the director is exactly the right fit, the visuals are apt, the music is lovely.
The film’s shooting style is highly realistic, telling the whole story through interview angles, news angles, surveillance footage and war-correspondent angles — it plays like a documentary. I’m not the biggest fan of this “shaky” perspective, but this deeply immersive approach really does suit this film better.
The main ingredients of the story = a grand, high-minded refugee camp + a bunch of down-and-out alien grunts + three aliens secretly scheming to fix their ship and go home + MNU’s live-experiment conspiracy + the sloppy protagonist infected by the fluid and undergoing genetic fission + betrayal by friends and family + a mutual faith in never giving up, never letting go. Refined by the screenwriters, director and crew, these ingredients undergo a magical chemical reaction, turning into communication barriers, racial discrimination, mockery, contempt and self-righteousness. Once again, it lays bare the ugliness of human nature.
The process is riveting — full of ups and downs, one climax after another.
The ending brings back the beauty of human nature. MNU’s conspiracy is exposed, the aliens are moved to a humane District 10, and the protagonist, now fully mutated, sits in a garbage dump making roses, one by one, for his faraway wife.
The only thing I find strange is this: the aliens’ technology is so advanced, so why didn’t they communicate with humans from the start and ask for help repairing the ship? Instead they waited to be shipped off down to District 9 to live a subhuman life. Their intelligence must be highly developed — so why couldn’t they communicate effectively? On a ship carrying millions of people, was there no interstellar diplomat? But the film never explains any of this, so there’s no point in overthinking it.
This film’s share/download page on verycd: http://www.verycd.com/topics/2766820/