I'm a bit behind the curve on seeing District 9, but I promise I'll be more timely with my movie reviews in the future.
Moving on. Finally checked out the much anticipated "alien flick" of the (end of) summer season. And I'm here to tell you it's anything but. Sure, sure - there are some aliens, quite a bit actually; and kick ass weapons, explosions, crazy technology, etc. But District 9, released August 14th in US (produced by Peter Jackson), offers depth and a plotline beyond the typical "shoot-em up" scenarios.
In 2005, D-9 director Neill Blomkamp made a short sci-fi film (ran about 6 minutes long) called Alive in Joburg. It quickly circulated the internets, got the attention of Peter Jackson, and was soon-after (obviously) turned into a full length feature film. Basically, some two million aliens arrive to Earth on a spaceship. After some nervous moments, and no activity, we (the people) decide to cut into the ship, and find the aliens in bad shape - malnourished, and living in the worst conditions. Slowly they are intergrated into the society and area directly below the arrival point - not much better conditions. Our story begins when tensions between the aliens and human residents around them rise and the agency in control of the area - MNU - decides to move the alien society into a more segregated area.
Alive in Joburg
As you can tell from above, both D-9 and it's predecessor short film use documentary style shooting techniques, with footage from news, interviews, and security cameras. As the film progresses, those techniques become less sporadic since the action goes places a news camera can't follow. However the shot is always jaunty and "hand-held" - largely reminiscent of last summer's Cloverfield. It creates a much more involved experience for the viewer, at times it feels like one's watching that evening's special news report rather than a feature film.
Furthering suspension of disbelief is the cast itself. Far from the "beautiful people" stereotypes of Hollywood casts, the film's casting director chose to go for the raw and everyday. A lot of the cast is largely unknown, most of the interviewees play themselves on camera, even Sharlto Copley - who plays Wikus Van De Merwe, the main character - hasn't featured in much beyond playing a "sniper" in Alive in Joburg. Which is stunning because the man can act. Even more impressive is that he ad-libbed all of his lines during the interviews portion of the film.
A lot of credit has to go to the visual effects of the film; everything from the aliens, to the spaceship and technology involved feels very realistic. So many times a film can go awry by not spending enough time and money on CGI details. The insectoid aliens are cleverly designed with a host of human features. They are bipedal, they communicate vocally, two legs, t
wo arms, etc. Going into the film I expected them to be more resembling of the "buggers" of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series (to be reviewed someday).
Digging deeper, one finds a lot more parralles between D-9 and Ender's Game series. The film deals with inter-species racism, or xeno-phobia, if you will. Not unlike the subject matter in the third book of the EG series, entitled Xenocide. In both, the humans share a certain environment with an alien species, which leads to tension and (in turn) distrust, violence. Whether D-9 borrows some elements from the EG series is a question to be researched, however the more obvious inspiration of the film are the very real historical events of the South African Apartheid - racial segregation during the middle to late twentieth century. The film's title itself references to District Six - an inner-city area in Cape Town declared "whites only" - which led to displacement (mostly by force) of some 60,000 native Africans to an area 25 kilometers away. One of my favorite lines from the film comes from an interview at the beginning with a local resident proclaiming something along the lines of "If they were human, it'd be much easier to live together. But they are alien, they are different." (don't remember the exact line, will fix it once I figure it out) - irony at its best.
A lot of unanswered questions are left about the aliens. In fact there's not much revealed at all. We don't find out what their home planet is, except that it has 7 moons (astrological buffs, I'm looking at you). The real reason, outside of speculation, for the aliens arrival is not revealed either. There are very vague lines about sexes. We find out they create, out of eggs, their offspring (a practice banned due to population control), but there isn't a definitive sign of male vs. female in their population. All these, and more mysteries within the film's plotline, lead to a very strong case for a sequel. One which I, for one, will greatly anticipate... Now where's Cloverfield 2?
Moving on. Finally checked out the much anticipated "alien flick" of the (end of) summer season. And I'm here to tell you it's anything but. Sure, sure - there are some aliens, quite a bit actually; and kick ass weapons, explosions, crazy technology, etc. But District 9, released August 14th in US (produced by Peter Jackson), offers depth and a plotline beyond the typical "shoot-em up" scenarios.
In 2005, D-9 director Neill Blomkamp made a short sci-fi film (ran about 6 minutes long) called Alive in Joburg. It quickly circulated the internets, got the attention of Peter Jackson, and was soon-after (obviously) turned into a full length feature film. Basically, some two million aliens arrive to Earth on a spaceship. After some nervous moments, and no activity, we (the people) decide to cut into the ship, and find the aliens in bad shape - malnourished, and living in the worst conditions. Slowly they are intergrated into the society and area directly below the arrival point - not much better conditions. Our story begins when tensions between the aliens and human residents around them rise and the agency in control of the area - MNU - decides to move the alien society into a more segregated area.
Alive in Joburg
As you can tell from above, both D-9 and it's predecessor short film use documentary style shooting techniques, with footage from news, interviews, and security cameras. As the film progresses, those techniques become less sporadic since the action goes places a news camera can't follow. However the shot is always jaunty and "hand-held" - largely reminiscent of last summer's Cloverfield. It creates a much more involved experience for the viewer, at times it feels like one's watching that evening's special news report rather than a feature film.
Furthering suspension of disbelief is the cast itself. Far from the "beautiful people" stereotypes of Hollywood casts, the film's casting director chose to go for the raw and everyday. A lot of the cast is largely unknown, most of the interviewees play themselves on camera, even Sharlto Copley - who plays Wikus Van De Merwe, the main character - hasn't featured in much beyond playing a "sniper" in Alive in Joburg. Which is stunning because the man can act. Even more impressive is that he ad-libbed all of his lines during the interviews portion of the film.
A lot of credit has to go to the visual effects of the film; everything from the aliens, to the spaceship and technology involved feels very realistic. So many times a film can go awry by not spending enough time and money on CGI details. The insectoid aliens are cleverly designed with a host of human features. They are bipedal, they communicate vocally, two legs, t
wo arms, etc. Going into the film I expected them to be more resembling of the "buggers" of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series (to be reviewed someday).Digging deeper, one finds a lot more parralles between D-9 and Ender's Game series. The film deals with inter-species racism, or xeno-phobia, if you will. Not unlike the subject matter in the third book of the EG series, entitled Xenocide. In both, the humans share a certain environment with an alien species, which leads to tension and (in turn) distrust, violence. Whether D-9 borrows some elements from the EG series is a question to be researched, however the more obvious inspiration of the film are the very real historical events of the South African Apartheid - racial segregation during the middle to late twentieth century. The film's title itself references to District Six - an inner-city area in Cape Town declared "whites only" - which led to displacement (mostly by force) of some 60,000 native Africans to an area 25 kilometers away. One of my favorite lines from the film comes from an interview at the beginning with a local resident proclaiming something along the lines of "If they were human, it'd be much easier to live together. But they are alien, they are different." (don't remember the exact line, will fix it once I figure it out) - irony at its best.
A lot of unanswered questions are left about the aliens. In fact there's not much revealed at all. We don't find out what their home planet is, except that it has 7 moons (astrological buffs, I'm looking at you). The real reason, outside of speculation, for the aliens arrival is not revealed either. There are very vague lines about sexes. We find out they create, out of eggs, their offspring (a practice banned due to population control), but there isn't a definitive sign of male vs. female in their population. All these, and more mysteries within the film's plotline, lead to a very strong case for a sequel. One which I, for one, will greatly anticipate... Now where's Cloverfield 2?
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