Best Film of 2009
Note: For those who have not seen the film, there are no "spoilers" in the review. The plot details I list have little to do with the focus of the story aside from providing exposition.
"District 9" is one of those rare gems that immediately immerses you in its world. Beginning in medias res with stark images of a massive spacecraft hovering over Johannesburg, the audience quickly discovers it's been there for over thirty years by the time our story picks up. For months after the craft appeared the Earth waited for a response. When none came, the decision was made to send special teams to board the vessel and finally get some answers. What they got, instead, were more questions.
The aliens inside were malnourished, unhealthy and their intelligence appeared to be below that of most humans. Labeled "prawns" due to their appearance, the aliens were removed from the ship and placed into a temporary encampment known as District 9, which has rapidly deteriorated into...
Surprisingly good
At first, the plot and characters in this movie seem quite bizarre, but it eventually becomes apparent that the movie is clearly and faithfully illustrating a theme which is natural to the human condition. That theme revolves around what happens when a minority group lives in the midst of a majority group, with the division into different and opposing groups being established based on their differences in ancestry, appearance, language, diet, and other cultural traits.
In such a situation, the majority group may grow to detest the minority group and unjustly blame them for many of their own troubles, and they may even be tempted to exterminate the minority group (ie, genocide), but their instincts will usually tell them that that's going too far. Instead, the minority group will usually be allowed to continue to exist, but they'll be geographically cordoned off and their rights will be limited, so that they suffer deprived circumstances, including epithets, physical...
Spellbound!
Just watched the movie at the opening night and I am spellbound! Firstly, I am living in Johannesburg and was absolutely amazed at many a subtle hints and glances at history this movie gave. There were too many moments that only living in Johannesburg will make one truly understand what the director was hinting at, and all done and put together brilliantly in a way I haven't seen done much before. Secondly, I simply loved the way Neil (btw never heard of him before) didn't conform to the traditional and all too cliched Hollywood sci-fi recipe, and wasn't scared of breaking lots of Hollywood cinema 'laws'. Alien ships always land somewhere in the US, aliens are always here to kill us with no reason, we always are the experts in solving any issues in the end - none of these were followed. I read some reviews of the film being too racist, xenophobic, sexist etc. which were issues that I believe the director was actually trying to highlight to us, rather than capitalise on them. And these...
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