District 9 (2009) | Sci-Fi Saturdays

9

You say you want a revolution? We all wanna change the world.

District 9 is a gritty and realistic look at the downside of aliens becoming stuck on our planet. It creates a parallel with real refugees and the way that countries handle humanitarian crises. The film does all this through a documentary-style lens as one man learns about the horrors his government is inflicting upon outsiders.

First Impressions

The trailer begins like a documentary about refugees in some third-world nation, with interviewees saying how they’re not welcome. But it is soon revealed that the refugees are not human, but alien. The creatures have no way to get home because the humans have confiscated their ship. This is what’s happening in District 9.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

The Fiction of The Film

The film, which is structured as a documentary, opens with talking heads recounting an alien spaceship that arrived on Earth 20 years ago and remains parked in the sky above Johannesburg, South Africa. The alien immigrants were placed into a temporary slum called District 9, but without a solid plan from the local government, nothing ever changed. With District 9 becoming a blight on the city and a drain on resources, Multinational United (MNU) is hired to relocate the creatures to a tent city outside of town. Wikus Van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley) of MNU Alien Affairs is promoted by his father-in-law Piet Smit (Louis Minnaar), a higher-up at MNU, to lead that relocation project. Elements of the story are broken up by interviews with a UKNR Correspondent and a sociologist from Kempton Park University, amongst others.

The tensions run high as the militaristic MNU arrives on site directed by Wikus, who is an ineffectual leader. A Nigerian faction run by gang leader Obesandjo (Eugene Khumbanyiwa) also lives in District 9 providing black market goods to the “prawns” (a derogatory name given to the aliens). An interview with a scientist explains that first and foremost, MNU is a weapons manufacturer, and their plan of moving District 9 is a way to get their hands on some alien weaponry–much of which is hoarded by Obesandjo. The biggest downside so far is that the alien weapons only seem to activate with alien DNA, and not when used by humans. Wikus leads his team in getting the “scrawl” of various aliens as “consent” to relocate them.

Inside one shack, Wikus discovers some contraband that belongs to alien Christopher Johnson and his son CJ. While examining the container, black fluid sprays into Wikus’s face. Koobus Venter (David James), a military leader with the MNU, executes an alien named Paul when he doesn’t provide the necessary information. Wikus gets a wound on his arm patched up but leaves early due to his feeling ill. Over the next 12 hours, black goo begins to drip from Wikus’s nose and his fingernails begin to fall out. Returning home that night, Wikus is surprised by his wife with a party for his promotion. He vomits black goo and passes out into the cake. Piet admits him to a medical facility but secretly takes Wikus to the basement labs of the MNU offices.

Wikus discovers his injured arm has now mutated into an alien arm, which the scientists at MNU use to test-fire alien weaponry. When doctors mention they want to harvest the Wikus/Alien DNA Wikus becomes upset and breaks out of the facility now being stronger than a human. MNU puts out an APB on Wikus, claiming he is infected from having sex with a prawn and is contagious. His only choice is to hide in District 9, where he happens to run into Christopher Johnson again. Christopher says that he can help revert Wikus to being human, but he needs the vial that was confiscated. It contains an alien fuel that will help get their mothership started again so they can leave the planet. The MNU soldiers stage a raid of District 9 just as Wikus and Christopher break into MNU headquarters to steal the fuel.

Christopher is aghast at the experiments being performed on his alien brothers. Wikus, who is also unaware of the torture and vivisections, says they must leave. They grab the fuel canister and head back to District 9 with Koobus and the MNU hot on their tail. They place the fuel into an alien dropship that has been hidden for 20 years under Christopher’s shack. As the drop ship rises towards the alien ship overhead, the MNU shoots it down. Christopher and Wikus are captured by the Nigerians. Obesandja wants to eat Wikus’s arm so that he can take the power of the alien for himself–a belief called “muti.” Christopher’s young son CJ, who is still in the dropship, activates the power on the alien ship, which activates a suit of alien mech armor in the Nigerian compound.

Wikus gets inside the armor and saves Christopher, who gets into the dropship. Using the armor’s weapons, he protects the dropship as it returns to the mothership, shooting down MNU vehicles and soldiers. Koobus damages the mech suit but is attacked by half a dozen aliens before he can kill Wikus. Wikus, now even more alien-like than before, wishes Christopher good luck, hoping he will return in the promised 3 years to heal him. MNUs alien experiments are exposed by the media to the public, while District 10 opens to house more than 2.5 million aliens. Wikus, now a fully alien creature, creates small metal flower sculptures that he leaves for his wife at her doorstep.

“What we do here at this department is we try to engage with the prawn on behalf of MNU and on behalf of humans.” – Wikus Van De Merwe

History in the Making

What would happen if you started turning into an alien creature? District 9 provides an interesting look at how such a process might unfold, especially in the racially segregated area of Johannesburg, South Africa. The film, which was the first feature-length film by South African director Neill Blomkamp, feels like a science-fiction version of Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis–a story in which a salesman changes into a giant cockroach. Blomkamp adapted District 9 from his own short subject film, Alive in Joburg, which had a similar plot and themes. As terrifying as Wikus’s story might be, the real horror in the film is its depiction of the atrocities performed on the alien visitors.

District 9 turns the trope of aliens visiting Earth on its ear. Rather than have these aliens being the aggressors, the Earthlings are the ones who provide the aggression. The film depicts a group of alien refugees stuck in Johannesburg–unable to go home and unable to integrate with human society. They live in squalor in poorly built shacks, living off of cat food, and gouged by Nigerian opportunists who cheat them out of their belongings. It also serves as a historical allegory about apartheid and race relations in South Africa. District 9 was inspired by the events of a real area in Cape Town, South Africa named District Six, where 60,000 residents were forcibly removed from the area over 10 years in order to make the portion of the city a “whites-only” neighborhood. While audiences might not go see a film about apartheid and human refugees, a science-fictionalized version of the same thing becomes a more viable way to tell a similar story.

The real impact of District 9 comes from its documentary-style footage, placing audiences right in the middle of the action. The conceit of the film’s format allows for Blomkamp to create an infodump of backstory as a news segment rather than having characters awkwardly explain the same details via conversation. This natural style of film can help audiences forget that they are watching a fictionalized version of events, and serves as an entryway into telling Wikus’s story. Partway through the film its style changes subtly, from a documentary-operated camera (run by a character within the film) to a similar handheld style of filming but with an omniscient view. This allows the audience to follow Wikus’s story as his transformation begins. It’s a subtle distinction, but one that allows the film to follow Wikus in a way that doesn’t question a documentary crew following a wanted fugitive.

Genre-fication

Like last week’s film, Moon, District 9 borrows elements from previous sci-fi films. Traditionally when aliens visit the Earth they have come seeking destruction (like War of the Worlds or a dozen other similar films). Though sometimes the aliens bring a message of peace (The Day the Earth Stood Still) or have been simply left behind (E.T. the Extra Terrestrial). The aliens depicted here are more of a blight on the planet; as a drifting ship of refugees that land on a foreign shore which puts stress on the social and economic systems of the country. The prawns of District 9 are reminiscent of the slag from Alien Nation. That 1988 film had a similar story of a ship landing on Earth with its hundreds of alien beings needing a place to stay and work. The difference is that the Tectonese from Alien Nation are humanoid in appearance which allows some of them the luxury of being adopted into higher levels of human society. They become business owners and police officers based on their history off-world. The prawns, on the other hand, are too different-looking from humans to be accepted. They look scary so many humans assume the worst. It’s the opposite effect from V: The Miniseries where the Visitors looked human and docile, but were really evil lizards under their skin. Here the prawns look evil, but many just want to go home.

District 9 also delves into unexpected levels of body horror. After Wikus is infected by the alien goo, he begins to turn into one of the aliens that he has been sanctioned to redistrict. His transformation is something more relevant to a horror film than a sci-fi film, but allows the filmmakers a tool for relating the horrors visited upon the aliens by the humans of this world. Science-fiction supplies the best tools for showing a character what it’s like to become someone else. White characters cannot understand what it’s like to be black, but within science-fiction a character can metamorphose into a subjugated alien race, allowing for some eye-opening experiences. The transformation itself is fast, starting with dark goo coming out of his orifices, followed by Wikus pulling his fingernails out–in a scene very reminiscent of Jeff Goldblum’s character in The Fly. But why is Wikus chosen to be the one transformed? His animosity and xenophobia against the prawns is nowhere as severe as Piet or especially Koobus. Wouldn’t they be better characters to visit this curse upon? Blomkamp probably believes that a transformation of one of these characters would be wasted on them. Wikus is a character that is more “on the fence” about the aliens. He’s doing a job, with some enthusiasm, but there’s no malice behind his actions as there is with Koobus. Wikus is much more nebbish, acting like he knows what he’s doing even when he’s obviously in over his head. The transformation allows the character to pick a side in the division between humans and aliens, but also to open his (and the audience’s) eyes to the other atrocities within the system. His transformation is something that is initially shown as a bad thing but ends up being the best for him in the long run.

Societal Commentary

Wikus’s entrance into the society of the prawns depicts the key themes of District 9, which are xenophobia and racism. Blomkamp does a good job of giving the sense of the apartheid-era racism that must still exist in South Africa, using the allegory of alien refugees as stand-ins for the black populace of the country. By using aliens, the bigotry and abuse by the human characters can be toned up much stronger, creating an environment where racism isn’t even trying to be hidden. For 20 years the government has felt pressure from the world community to treat the aliens in a more humanitarian way. On the surface that’s at least what has happened. But the reality is that the community of District 9 is not being integrated into society. Those who wish to punish the prawns for being different have tied up any real change in bureaucratic red tape, leading the District to exist in squalor with only the bare minimum necessary to survive. Criminal organizations are allowed to thrive within its walls, and multinational corporations (which can pay fines and make contributions to avoid punishments) are free to conduct inhumane experiments on the aliens. Within the world of the film, that’s seemingly okay–since the aliens are not human. But that’s only the conceit of the filmmakers creating the aliens as stand-ins for marginalized groups. The film depicts how real-world hate manifests itself so effortlessly. Once individuals convince themselves and others that a person is not human (whether due to their skin color, religion, or sexual orientation) it makes it easier for them to practice inhumane treatment against them.

While Wikus is not shown as an overt oppressor towards the aliens, at least in the same way that Piet and Koobus are depicted, he is still part of the problem. He works for MNU, having been tasked as the head of the relocation effort for the aliens, and blindly following orders of the higher-ups. Ignorance of institutionalized racism is still as bad as practicing it wholeheartedly. Wikus cannot work within the system, and not be a part of that system’s intolerance. His transformation into a prawn shows him how easy it is to cross that line between being an oppressor to becoming oppressed. Even before his transformation, Wikus was treated like an outsider. His father-in-law doesn’t respect him much, creating cover stories about Wikus’s change to protect his daughter rather than trying to help Wikus. While his wife loves him, his father-in-law is looking for the first excuse to cut him loose. The ability to empathize with the aliens changes Wikus’s attitude about everything. In fact, it’s more than empathy, since he is forced to live as an alien. Suddenly he is concerned about his safety and welfare. He must worry about being shot by angry humans for no other reason than looking different. He understands the fear of being vivisected in experiments to understand his anatomy. Wikus understands the horrors and dangers of his social system, having lived now as an undesirable.

The Science in The Fiction

In the world of District 9, while the aliens are unwanted on Earth their technology is sought after. While the most apparent piece of technology is the giant alien ship hovering over Johannesburg (for 20 years as well), that’s not something that gets hinted at. Primarily, it’s the alien weaponry that MNU is eager to understand as it would provide the company that deciphers its inner workings a distinct advantage in the global military landscape. What is most important is being able to use the alien weapons and the one thing that MNU has discovered is that it takes an alien hand (and its DNA) to activate the guns and other devices. These are devices that shoot plasma or discharge electrical beams, yet are unable to be fired by humans–which is probably for the best. The DNA lock acts like a Mission: Impossible-style fingerprint reader, preventing anyone who is not an alien from being able to activate the device. That’s why MNU is so excited to find Wikus, who–as a 50/50 hybrid between alien and human–has the ability to activate the weapons. They know if they can extract some of his tissue or blood they can find some way to trigger something similar in their soldiers. Thankfully, they do not get this figured out before Wikus escapes.

Blomkamp also creates a fun bit of technology in the powered exoskeleton. It’s a small robot-like device that can house a prawn as a rider. Like the guns, this technology is also unable to be used by anything that is not an alien. The Nigerians have a suit in their camp and have been trying to understand this particular piece of technology, to no avail. It allows the wearer to have enhanced speed and protection from arms fire while giving a whole host of weapons at their disposal. It is reminiscent of the power-loader technology that Ripley uses in Aliens, except it’s an offensive weapon rather than just a service device. Eventually, the device is damaged enough from the MNU weaponry that it ceases to function, spitting Wikus back out. What becomes of it in the future is unknown, but certainly, someone else will try to repair it and get it functioning again.

The Final Frontier

Blomkamp continued to build new and interesting near-future worlds in cinema after District 9. His follow-up film was Elysium, with Matt Damon. It too has a powered exoskeleton and shows the class battle between the haves and the have-nots. Sharlto Copley returns as a villain in that film, proving he has a strong diversity of screen personas. The next film he made was Chappie. It also takes place in a future Johannesburg where robots are commonplace. One of those robots becomes self-aware and lives with gangsters as it attempts to understand its world. Blomkamp’s films all have a distinct style and awareness of cultural problems in the world, which he doesn’t shy away from. To date, his sci-fi films present stories that are often parables for the class struggle, or what being human really means. It might be easier for him to make a fun sci-fi adventure, but creating a story that challenges both the artist and the audience makes for a better film overall.

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