District 9 – Review

In theory, District 9 had the feeling of the type of science-fiction Spielberg used to make, but in execution, it only comes out as a shining example of potential left untapped. The problem is simply boiled down to one question, what is District 9 as a film? Is it a documentary? Action film? Docudrama? It’s a collection of ideas and styles, that don’t gel together, but are an interesting attempt at something seemingly new, even if it’s narratively messy.

As a docudrama, or whatever fancy terminology you want to give it, it fails. The film starts off as a retrospective document on the origins of District 9, and one doomed government agent (Sharlto Copley). We get interviews and archival footage, all highly convincing, that tell us why these slums were created, the racial tension, life in District 9, and the beginnings of an epic eviction of over a million aliens into a new confinement. At first, this is all pretty fun. In 20 or so minutes though we’ve dealt with all of the back story we need, and it perfectly gives us the information without feeling like heavy-handed exposition. The one aspect of the film that nobody will complain about, is the seamless marriage of live-action footage mixed with CG. It works wonders for the film, and if this area suffered, we would just have one hokey sci-fi yarn, but with the FX being so good, we never question the aliens, only accept them.

Where this goes south, is District 9 breaks the documentary format, and shows us things like establishing shots and character interactions that would have never been filmed. A documentary documents an event or through interviews retells a story for people who weren’t there, and by showing us these shots, it breaks the format, and just becomes a movie. The reason why something like The Blair Witch Project works as a fake documentary, is that whatever happens on camera is shown. We never see anything the camera doesn’t. So this begs the case of why go this angle, if the film isn’t going to be a fake documentary 100%, then why be documentary-like? Because midway, the film begins as just an action film.

Now as an action film, the film succeeds because of the previously said marriage of FX and live action, and also because the director Neill Blomkamp is really good at staging these scenes. The final third of the film shines, and saves it. The alien weaponry is pretty cool once it is used, and these scenes breathe some much needed life into a film that was beginning to become stale. It’s hard to pinpoint why it was becoming stale, although the documentary footage was wearing thin, and the lead, a hero we’re going to follow for the second half of the film, was written as a dorky schmuck. It’s hard not to get irritate with him in the beginning, but through some circumstances that happen to the character, he drops the schmuck attitude. To me, the real characters, the ones with interesting depth, are the lead alien, Christopher and his son. While the action almost supersedes their arc towards the end, the film gathers its purpose and themes from them.

It’s hard not to get what Blomkamp is saying here in District 9. By nature, humans will fear what they don’t understand. The aliens were at first starved and in need of medical help. By our fears, we place them all in a camp, and soon a certain camp life begins, giving the aliens what is necessary to survive, things like factions are made, stealing becomes a norm, insider trading comes about, making them look like low-lives in our human eyes. But Blomkamp is saying that we create our evil, and the references to historical dark times like the Holocaust and the Japanese camps here in America during WWII are obvious sources, and it works. This adds to the film, which is basically an alien invasion flick. By dropping the documentary approach and going in as a full-on action sci-fi film with this subtext, I believe it would have worked better.

District 9 ends in with a whimper, instead of a bang due to its anti-climatic finish, one that does the clichéd summer angle: set-up for a sequel. Blomkamp will be a great director someday, but his debut here is a bit muddle with too many ideas that don’t gel. The film is certainly not without its merits, it just allows cliché to damper its attempt at originality.

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