District 9: The Summer's Coolest Fantasy Film
If you're looking for the late-summer special-effects action fantasy with big franchise potential, forget about G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. (You already forgot? Fine.) Instead, proceed directly to District 9, a grimy little scare-fi thriller from South Africa, hitherto unknown as a production center for really cool movies. The picture bears the imprimatur of another gifted outsider, Peter Jackson, who with The Lord of the Rings made New Zealand his own little Hollywood. But the real star is director and co-writer Neill Blomkamp, 29, who proves with his first feature that no genre is so tarnished by overuse and misuse that it can't be revived by a smart kid with fresh ideas.
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Blomkamp pours his clever notions into a familiar mold: a story of extraterrestrials who come to Earth and are treated like outlaws. Sound schizophrenic? Not to Blomkamp, who grew up in South Africa (before moving to Vancouver at 18 to work in special effects) and who knew from boyhood that he wanted to be a filmmaker. "On one side of my mind you have this place with a crazy racial background, and on the other side of my brain you have this science-fiction geek," he says. "And then one day the two just mixed, and I decided I wanted to do science fiction in South Africa." (See the best 1950s sci-fi movies.)
A giant spaceship hovers over a world capital, just as in The Day the Earth Stood Still. Only this time it's Johannesburg, not Washington. And the beings that emerge aren't elegant, superior dudes like Michael Rennie and Keanu Reeves; they're large, icky insect types, with wriggling worms where their noses might be. Nor do they issue the lofty proclamation that the peoples of the world must resolve to live in peace (or we'll all be killed). Instead, these space things, more than a million of them, hang around for 20 years in a ratty part of Joburg called District 9 while their vehicle awaits the spare parts it needs to make the trip home.
By now, most earthlings are less afraid than annoyed; they see the illegal aliens as just another class of lowlife troublemakers. Because they also look like creepy crustaceans, they are slapped with the derisive term prawns. They possess weapons no human can fire, but a gang of Nigerian thugs buys up most of the stash anyway, while supplying the creatures with women who'll engage in interspecies prostitution. When local resentment reaches its boiling point, a private firm gets a government contract to cattle-herd the furriners to a new settlement, far from the city. To enforce this transgalactic apartheid, the head of the company calls on his naive, underachieving but very game son-in-law Wikus (Sharlto Copley).
It's a dirty job, and it gets dirtier when Wikus is infected with some alien gookum and his left arm turns creature-like. Now he's hunted by both his old firm and the Nigerians who want his prawn arm to fire the space weapons. Classic Hitchcock vectors: a man on the run from two adversaries. In '60s TV-series terms, he's the fugitive and the one-armed man. Out of options, he must find help from the species he and his kind have subjugated and slaughtered. In this monster movie, the monster is us. (See the 25 greatest villains of all time.)
Evicted and imprisoned, deprived of their rights, the aliens could be the Palestinians in Gaza, the detainees in Guantánamo or, transparently, black South Africans for the 46 years of apartheid and, in effect, for centuries before. (The title is a play on District Six, a vibrant mixed-race area of Cape Town that was declared whites-only in 1966, after which 60,000 of its residents were forcibly removed.) In his 2005 rough draft for District 9, the short film Alive in Joburg, Blomkamp didn't foreground the political elements. But while writing the feature script with Terri Tatchell, he became aware "that all these very serious topics about racism and xenophobia and segregation would start to shine through the science-fiction-esque veneer," he says. "I had to be very careful that I didn't get too close to these serious topics with a film that's mostly a summer thrill ride." He told himself, "It's your first film. Use it as satire. Chill out."
The seriousness is apparent yet not obtrusive. Whites seem to run the country, the corporations and the media, much as they did under apartheid, but that will hardly register with international audiences conditioned to see a parade of Caucasians in action movies. What is more likely to grab viewers is the dynamic storytelling (partly in mockumentary form), the gruesome yet sympathetic aliens, the robot suit that briefly turns Wikus into Iron Man, and the surfeit of body parts exploding. Like David Cronenberg — especially in his masterpiece, The Fly — Blomkamp is fascinated by the ways our bodies morph, decay and betray us. And like Jackson's early, grotty films (Bad Taste, Braindead — the titles say it all), District 9 revels in its mixture of horror and loopy humor and in the propensity for odd-looking creatures to suddenly go splat!
Even more impressive is the way this feature-film novice director sells his vision of Johannesburg as a dusty sump hole, a place of sapping heat and blinding glare. The creatures aren't caressed with the moody lighting of most monster films; by sticking them out in the sun, Blomkamp demystifies them and shows off their CGI sophistication. (Virtually all the aliens were created digitally; he used very few puppets.) "I wanted the image to feel incredibly raw and unmanipulated," he says, "almost like it came straight from the camera sensors right onto the screen. So instead of setting the shot up and really making a big deal of the effects and then going back to normal footage, I wanted it to feel as if the effects were completely part of the scene." (See the 100 best movies of all time.)
Blomkamp, who directed three shorts in the Halo video-game universe, was hired by Jackson to make a Halo feature. That project foundered after a few months, and Jackson proposed that Blomkamp make a different feature right away. He resuscitated the Alive in Joburg idea, expanding and improving it into District 9. Jackson even let Blomkamp cast Copley, a high school pal who had never acted, in the lead. Amazingly, Copley carries the film, bringing to a most demanding role the scheming dimness of Harry Dean Stanton mixed with the dogged, unwarranted optimism of Steve Carell. Jackson, says Blomkamp, is "the guy that allowed everything to happen." Through the shoot and editing, "he'd always say, 'Make the film you want to make.' " Wise teacher; star pupil.
We ruin no surprises by saying that at the end of the film, there's promise of a sequel. Blomkamp swears that the possibility didn't occur to him until the last week of filming. "Now that I've started thinking about it, I would love to make another movie," he says. "I'd go back. But only if it's successful — only if people want it back."
They will. They'd better. For District 9 proves that genre films, besides being a hell of a lot of fun, can say things you hadn't considered and show stuff you haven't seen. There can be few anticipations more pleasant than the promise of Blomkamp's second terrific movie. Bring on District 10.
The Hollywood Dip
August 16, 2009
Mabuhay readers of Balita!
It's me again, your Hollywood insider, Renae Punzalan. I hope you went out to see your favorite movies this week.
I have to tell you how much of a sci-fi geek I am. I love aliens, robots, science fiction and outer space! (I sometimes consider myself "other-worldly" as well.)
So I got very excited when I went to the screening of DISTRICT 9! This movie is so good, it is the "must see" summer movie of the year! I haven't been this crazy about a movie since STAR WARS Episode I, where I waited in line for hours, just to see the first (worlwide) midnight show, way back in 1999. What a geek!
Going back to District 9, I don't want to spoil your trip to the theater but I'll give you a little peek at what to expect.
This movie brings such a unique concept to it's audience. Its comprised of dramatic scenes, "mockumenatary" footage, real news video obtained from the South African Broadcasting Corporation and other news agencies. The idea behind the movie comes from the short, low budget mock-documentary called "Alive In Jo'burg." It's shot in a Johannesburg shantytown by the film's director, Neill Blomkamp. The short film is available on YouTube.
I had an opportunity to interview Neill and I bombarded him with questions. That usually happens when I love a movie so much, there is a ton of things I want to know.
He has directed many celebrated short films as well as some very high budget commercials for Nike, Citroen, Gatorade, Panasonic and Namco. This is his first directorial debut in a feature film and he also wrote the Screenplay.
He said he wanted to bring something very different to his audience, like taking some Aliens and putting them in Johannesburg, South Africa, which is where he grew up. He mentioned to me that he was very skeptical about how audiences would react to the style of DISTRICT 9 and has been patiently waiting to see what happens when it hits theaters on August 14th. I told him I loved the film so much and that he had nothing to worry about. He thanked me, gracefully.
We also chatted about what a great job Sony does with the film's advertising. I don't know if you've noticed all the posters on bus stops all over the city saying, "FOR HUMANS ONLY." Its so genius! Apparently, the posters have been up for quite a while. There is even a hotline number you can call to report non-human sightings to Multi-National United (MNU): 1-866-666-6001. I called and left a message that there was some non-human activity going on in my neighborhood. I mean these aliens could eat up the neighborhood kids, which wouldn't be a bad thing. (What? I love kids!)
By the way, this guy is younger than me, just to let you know -- and very successful. (Gosh the pressure I must endure!)
I was also lucky enough to get an interview with the star of the film, Sharlto Copley. He plays Wikus van der Merwe an MNU field operative, who is responsible for moving the Aliens out of DISTRICT 9 to a new camp. Sharlto, who is also great friends with the director, confided that Neill persuaded him to play the role of Wikus. He said, "we just had confidence and trust in each other that we could do our jobs to the best of our abilities." Sharlto is phenomenal as Wikus, and shows off his great acting chops. He was such a pleasure to interview and handsome, if I do say so myself.
DISTRICT 9 is the best film I have seen all year and I think it will be one of the best sci-fi films of all time. I have that much confidence in it. So go out there, see it and tell me what you think. I would love to hear from you.You have just been "dipped!" "Babay, you!"
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