District 9, Human Nature at It's Entitled Worst

District 9, the chilling new movie by Neill Blomkamp, is a tense nightmare of violence, brutality and inhumanity. History is littered with horrific stories of degradation, subjugation and extermination, making District 9 not seem extreme, but probable. The less powerful, undesirable or “savage” among us often face the anger, intimidation and ugliness of those in control.

District 9 succeeds in ripping away the façade of civilized humankind to expose a putrid underbelly of avarice, hatred and excuse-making. Not to seem too harsh, but the plot: humankind setting up a “slum” to separate the “prawns” (nickname for the aliens) from decent, God fearing folk is all too real in human history.

Aliens, the aforementioned Prawns, have landed…or rather parked a massive space ship over Johannesburg, South Africa for some unknown reason…perhaps fate, bad luck or just blind coincidence. The aliens, a particularly disgusting looking bipedal race resembling shrimp, are starving. The prawn’s leaders are presumably dead and the ship out of fuel so in skewed compassion the South African’s set up a refugee camp close to the city.

The burden on South African society is massive; there are over a million hungry aliens to feed and shelter and only so much tolerance for the task. The food is limited the shelter substandard, even for the poorest of humans, and the treatment of the aliens demeaning. Luckily for them the aliens can eat almost anything organic and do. The South African’s, desperate for help enlist the aid of MNU, a conglomerate based around arms sales, to control and manage the aliens and they do-viciously. Enter one Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley) a rather nice man whose only claim to fame is that he married well.

His father-in-law, a pretentious bastard, promoted him to be in charge of an alien relocation program and the officious Merwe goes about his task with vigor till an unfortunate accident: he manages to get alien goo splattered on him. The goo, a virulent compound changes him…dramatically, but even more, the hapless Merwe changes in his attitude when he begins to mutate. No longer are the prawns monsters, but his salvation.

District 9 is a fresh approach to a old and terrible story: our despicable treatment of those unlike us. The film’s unforgiving attitude, stark depictions and harsh condemnations are all too accurate: E.g. burning baby prawns in their shells is called “abortion” and the popping sound as they die compared to popcorn popping. I watched the small prawns die and wanted to vomit. Disturbing seems a light description of the impact of that scene, perhaps soul shattering would be better.
Blomkamp brilliantly begins the film by painting the prawns as scavengers-shiftless and dangerous then slowly reveals “humanness” and compassion and a love of children until I found myself engaged with the prawns and wanting the humans dead. They deserved it.

I would not advise you to see District 9 unprepared, however I would strongly advise you to see it. The brilliance of Blomkamp, the performance of Copley and the special effects and plot are all excellent and the action superb. What makes the film exceptional is the delivery. The message is buried in a realistic documentary style that comes across perfectly.

Rating 4.5 out of 5.

See you at the movies, front and center.