District 9 is not a politically correct film - for whatever biases you want upheld by "correctedness". It is also not a mocumentary, though it takes the form of a documentary. There are constant - all fabricated - news releases and in-depth interviews with authorities ranging from UKNR Chief Correspondent Grey Bradnam (Jason Cope), sociologist Sarah Livingstone (Nathalie Boltt) and Dr Katrina McKenzie (Sylvaine Strike) to MIL Engineer Les Feldman (John Sumner) and CIV engineer Francois Moraneu (Nick Blake). These authorities are augmented across the movie by random interviews with dozens of interviewees about how they perceive events. All of this gives a great sense of authenticity and eminent doom to the film. The anti-hero of District 9 is Wikus van de Merwe (a riveting Sharlto Copley, the director's buddy from school days who had never acted before). What is surprising about Wikus, at first you may dismiss him as a blundering fool full of faux pas, promoted beyond his level of competence by Piet Smit (Louis Minnaar) the father of his wife, Tania Van De Merwe (played by Vanessa Haywood).

Wikus appears to be the typical bungling bureaucrat, but he is employed by Multi-National United (MNU), a private company that, among its various nefarious activities, manages District 9, a squatter camp where the aliens were settled 20-years ago, when they came from outer space as depleted refugees. The giant spaceship they arrived in still hovers over Johannesburg, casting a dark shadow on the city. The aliens look like Davey Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean. They are pejoratively called "Prawns" (nearly all digitally created), though they are the size of humans with very narrow waists, they have scales and multiple tentacles; they are not crustaceans or scavengers, though others see them as such.

The aliens are repulsive to humans-except to a gang of Nigerian tricksters who have also settled in District 9 and make their profits by trading cat food for alien products, including a variety of advanced weaponry that only the aliens can fire because of their many tentacled protuberances. The Nigerians also have a side trade in body parts or 'muti' derived from the Prawns.

The alien numbers have grown to over two million and MNU has been instructed to move them 200km north to a new camp, District 10, or as the leaflet calls it a paradise out of sight and sound of the metropolis. It is Wikus job to organise and start the evacuation, but everything goes wrong from the start. Then Wikus becomes contaminated and starts growing an arm and hand just like those of a prawn -'ah, but he can now fire their sophisticated weapons, something no human has been able to do.

Wikus is now hunted by MNU as the first specimen to have successfully united alien and human characteristics. MNU's forces are led by Koobus (David James). Wikus, when taken to MNU's secret research laboratory suddenly realises that MNU is up to other forms of exploitation he was totally unaware of. The Nigerians, led by Obesandjo (Eugene Khumbanyiwa) are also after him for his new appendage. Wikus becomes transformed, and in the process the viewer begins to sit on the edge of his or her seat, as suddenly begins to identify with Wikus the whistle blower, no; the activist, no; the militant crusader, no; the champion of Prawns, yes. The leading alien scientist is Christopher Johnson (acted also by Jason Cope). A lively and diminutive son, who seems more adept than his father, assists him. For 20 years they have been making the fuel that would allow them to lift off their giant spaceship, leave earth, and go home to their planet.

They also need Wikus to achieve their objectives. The aliens speak in strange clicks and vibrating sounds that Wikus understands and we can follow through the use of English subtitles. As an action film it also changes, second to a biological horror movie, then third, to chases and a violent confrontation between the three contending forces involving weaponry, gunships, tanks and more. Here is an original fantasy film that may grip you. The corporate greed of MNU has been seen before in many parts of the world where business has run amuck, but in South African terms one thinks of Executive Outcomes and Dr Wouter Basson or Dr Death in RSA (plus Josef Mengele in Germany and American corporations in Iraq like Blackwater). Also of the removal of people from District Six, the destruction of Sophiatown, and the creation of more than a dozen failed Bantustans (or District 10s). As The New York Times says about District 9, "The only way to become fully human is to be completely alienated". District 9, to its credit, does not labour any of these parallels. District 9 is one hour and 52 minutes long. It is rated 13+. It is in English and other languages with English subtitles. The director is Neill Blomkamp who grew up in Johannesburg, but now lives in Vancouver, Canada. He wrote the script with Terri Tatchell. It was based partly on his 2005 short-film Alive in Jo'burg. The cinematographer is Trent Opaloch. The editor is Julian Clarke. The music is by Clinton Shorter. The producer is Peter Jackson of the trilogy Lord of the Rings. It was filmed in Gauteng and at Miramar, Wellington, New Zealand. It cost P200 million to make and has so far grossed over P2 billion worldwide.
sasa_majuma@yahoo.co.uk