CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
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Review of District 9

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

this entry brought to you by le tigre, "shred a"





The first time I saw the District 9 teaser, I was salivating in my seat. It started with what appeared to be documentary footage of South Africans being interviewed, talking about foreigners who have ruined everything since they've come, wondering why it is that they just don't go away, interviews with government officials saying that they'd had their hands full and there was nothing they could really do about the situation. The trailer ended with a shot up on the skyline, revealing a city block wide space ship, which cut to a close-up of an crustacean-like alien creature speaking in a series of clicks, a translation caption at the bottom of the screen saying that they meant no harm, only wanted to go home.

I was completely floored. Rather than showing explosions and aliens running at people, the teaser instead set out to show that what was in store was a science fiction movie for grown-ups, with a deep theme meant to be an allegory. This wasn't just a summer blockbuster-- or rather, a would-be summer blockbuster the studio had no confidence in, which is why it was coming out in August-- this was a different creature altogether, and moreover, everybody concerned with the movie got it. This wasn't a movie that got ruined by poor marketing, with executives not having any idea what to do with it. District 9 made no bones about exactly what it was, and boy, did it deliver.

For the record, in terms of plot, there's nothing here that is completely surprising. You know going into it that the aliens are peaceful, you know that the humans are the aggressors, and you can probably guess that the last act will involve getting the alien that quickly becomes the main supporting character to the space ship. It's also obvious that, as in every science fiction movie since Alien that the major private company behind the military wing will be faceless and malevolent, interested only in its bottom line and exploiting the visitors.

What we have, then, is a familiar theme played out through an innovator's eye, because every part of that plot brings freshness and imagination, and is handled with an eye for grounding the plot firmly in reality. The main character, a corporate peacenick, is completely blind to the fact that the prawns, as they are called, aren't just animals, yet the prawns themselves, beyond the main one who is clearly educated more than the others, come off as savages for the most part. The tenuous dynamic between the hero and the prawns is captivating, and is an able example of the maturity in movie's execution. It's not just that District 9's director grew up in South Africa and that his movie is most directly about apartheid, it can be brought out and shown to cover racism in general, even amongst those who, ostensibly, mean well.

For the record however, District 9 isn't just an archetypal story told with an excellent, original concept; it is also an extremely solid action movie. It's like Children of Men in that once the universe has been established, the movie never stops moving, and climaxes with a nail-bitingly gritty roller coaster ride that ebbs and flows with precision, only stopping for a breath here and there. It's amazing that director Neill Blomkamp hasn't directed a full movie before, let alone a movie this explosive. If you watch the original Transformers, and assumably the sequel as well, one of the most frustrating aspects is that the action scenes seem to be put through a blender-- it's almost impossible, when the robots finally start fighting, to tell exactly what's happening. It's all smoke, explosions, and bright colors flashing. It's as if Michael Bay had no idea what it was he wanted to focus on, so instead he tried to show us everything, and in the process showed us nothing. Blomkamp is the opposite, with a clear, visceral vision that, with a head grounded in showing a ground's eye view of all the action, everything comes across with freneticism yet clarity. All of this, of course, was done on the cheap-- District 9 was made with a mere 30 million dollars (compared to Transformers 2's 150 million), yet the visuals are so completely immersive it's impossible to tell how the hell it was all done, creating a seamless universe. There were moments in Transformers where everything just looked like CGI soup.

The success of District 9 shows ably that if you treat audiences like adults, they'll respond in full. It's not that the plot of the film is so original or so unpredictable, but it's executed with such intelligence and a willingness to show ugliness rather than just glitz, without berating or preaching that it is imminently compelling. District 9 is flawless in what it is trying to do, and while it's open to a sequel, I almost don't want to see more, as what's here feels so accomplished. Besides being an excellent movie that I can't wait to have on DVD, District 9 has created a promising director who, no matter what he takes on next, will have me in a seat.
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with love from CRS @ 7:55 AM 

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