Shithole Alien Districts - DISTRICT 9

There has been a lot of talk lately about shithole countries.  Clearly, this is ridiculous, because while all countries have their bad areas, it is reductive and offensive to call an entire country a shithole.  All countries have areas of great beauty, people of generous character, and opportunities to offer the world.  I think what Trump meant to say, because thinly veiled racist statements are so unbecoming of a President of the United States, was "Why are there some many people wanting to immigrate from shithole districts?"  And by people, he meant aliens, since he was clearly thinking of Neill Blomkamp´s groundbreaking film examining the hellish living conditions of South Africa's infamous DISTRICT 9.  Although someone should break it to him that it isn't a documentary.

     

The Capsule:

In 2010 Johannesburg, South Africa, 1.8 million refugees are forced to live in subhuman conditions in a slum designated District 9.  The fact that the refugees are not human does not excuse their treatment in the slightest.  Back in the early 1980s, a gigantic mothership parked over Johannesburg, stranding huge numbers of blue collar aliens who didn’t know how the advanced systems of the ship worked.  Having no concept of personal property, a completely foreign social structure, and looking rather odd from a human’s perspective, the aliens were unable to assimilate and were forced into a marginalized existence, scavenging and selling advanced technology for cat food.  One industrious alien, Christopher Johnson (Jason Cope) has been working in secret for 20 years distilling enough spaceship fuel to kick start the mothership and get his people off Earth for good.  Unfortunately, bumbling racist Multi-Nation United bureaucrat Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley) fucks it up by unknowingly confiscating the fuel canister during an illegal eviction.  Wikus gets to see how the other side lives, though, when the fluid he accidentally sprayed himself with begins to genetically transform him into an alien.  His bosses, including his father-in-law (Louis Minnaar), are so delighted at the development they can’t wait to dissect Wikus alive and harvest every part of his body for weapons research.  Escaping just before having his heart cut out, Wikus takes refuge the only place available to a freak like him, District 9.  When Christopher Johnson explains he can reverse the process on the mothership, Wikus, Christopher, and his brainy son embark on a dangerous mission to retrieve the fuel canister that will pit them against the MNU battalion of mercenaries, as well as a load of opportunistic Nigerian gangsters.  Along the way, Wikus must weigh the welfare of millions of sentient beings against his own selfish, dumbass life.

I dearly love Neill Blomkamp.  The South African director is equal parts political/social commentator and enthusiastic sci-fi movie nerd.  His allegories may not be as exquisitely nuanced as Jordan Peele’s GET OUT, but they all have robots.  That’s a fair trade, as far as I’m concerned.  While the CG in Blomkamp’s films may not age as well (though it looks lovely to me), his subject matter will likely be depressingly relevant for the foreseeable future.  

DISTRICT 9 is about South Africa’s period of apartheid.  The period of institutional racial segregation may have ended in 1991, but it’s scars linger to this day.  So much, in fact, that Blomkamp didn’t have to create the horrible living conditions of District 9, he just used an existing camp were Johannesburg’s poorest residents lived. And not years ago, either.  Some people were still living there when filming began.  His sci-fi fable wasn’t “not far removed”, it was literally overlapping.

The film may have been a sci-fi reflection of horrible abuses of apartheid, but it is more on the nose as a parable on the immigration crisis (which the film predates by six years).  The government response of herding over a million uninvited guests into a segregated refugee camp and ignoring them seems depressingly prescient.  All the other nations claim NIMBY, since the mothership literally landed in South Africa's backyard.  In Star Trek terms, it is a terrible first contact, especially for the aliens.  Most of the population views them as shiftless, hard shelled thieves.  They are shunned by the public, exploited by the Nigerian gangsters, and vivisected by the private company charged to take care of them.  Sure, the aliens may—occasionally—rip a human’s arm off, but as far as an invasion from space goes, the Earth got off pretty easy.   

By the way, the aliens are derogatorily referred to as “prawns” because of their crustacean-like appearance and scavenging ways, but I don’t want to be racially insensitive even to races that don’t exist.

The sharp script Blomkamp co-wrote with Terri Tatchell goes a long way, but the movie solidly rests on Sharlto Copley’s shoulders.  Copley is a chameleon, totally disappearing into whatever role he is given, including the three he’s done with Blomkamp and half dozen plus roles he played in HARDCORE HENRY alone.  With the exception of Elysium, where he plays an unrepentant dickhead from start to end, Copley can come off as more endearing than he has any right being.  Wikus Van De Merwe starts off as an over-privileged, incompetent, racist (speciesist?) buffoon.  He is so obtuse he doesn’t grasp the level of cruelty he is inflicting on these creatures for the sake of career advancement.  Throughout the movie, though, he slowly—and painfully—has his eyes opened to the truth.

Blomkamp and Copley must have a similar relationship as Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell, because the movie gleefully puts Copley’s character through the ringer.  Wikus’ transformation starts off embarrassingly tumultuous, like when he tells his wife he might have shit his pants just as a surprise party for him starts.  After his escape from the dissection-happy employers, where his father-in-law calmly discusses how to distribute his organs as if he wasn’t listening from the table, the abuse only gets worse.  The MNU release a cover story explaining Wikus’ condition as the result of an alien STD.  No one listens when he protests “I would never have pornographic relations with one of those creatures.”

Wikus haplessly pinballs around from one predicament to the next.  Everyone wants a piece of him, from his old boss, to the homicidal head mercenary, Koobus (David James), to the Nigerians (they just want to cut his arm off, he can keep the rest).  He also has to endure some Cronenburg-esque body horror as bits of him keep falling off.  It’s hard not to feel bad for the schlub, even if he completely deserves it.

The sharp political satire and self-reflection is great, but once Wikus and Christopher Johnson get their hands on an alien armory, the movie switches tracks into a gloriously excessive orgy of sci-fi action.  The weapons roster is straight out of a video game.  Lightning gun, check.  Magnetic launcher, check.  Explosion gun (I guess), check.  No matter what they use, the result is a crimson mist where there used to be a mercenary.  Also, I believe this is the only movie to use a pig carcass as a deadly, high speed projectile.

The squee factor goes through the roof when Wikus climbs inside the alien mech (drivable robot with gun arms, for any non-nerds out there).  It’s a nice touch that the mech resembles the alien physique, even down to the dangly feeler things coming off the mouth.  It is also equipped with so much hardcore geek bling that it deserves to be pained on the side of a van.  

Even with all the fan service, the climax in District 9 is incredibly tense and emotionally engaging.  It doesn’t start off as Wikus’ finest hour.  Not only does he screw up Christopher Johnson’s 28 year old plan to fly the command shuttle back to the mothership, his first action when suited up inside the badass mech is to run away.  However, his newly found empathy ultimately wins out over cowardice and he takes on Koobus’ whole team of heavily armed killers to give Christopher Johnson and his son a chance to escape.  

I’m not sure I’ve ever wanted a sequel as badly as I want one for this movie.  The questions left dangling are meaty enough to satisfy a pit bull.  The biggest question, somewhat rhetorically, is how badly are we, as a species, fucked when that mothership comes back.  Despite Wikus’ eventual altruism and a few people eloquently speaking for change without actually doing any of it, this incident casts quite a shadow on the human race.  One of the most damning—and, let’s face it, realistic—strikes against us is that even though everyone acknowledges that a fleet of highly pissed off aliens are likely on its way to Earth, no one has changed their behavior in the slightest!  The aliens are still treated like subhuman shit and corralled in an internment camp.  If we were smart, the aliens would suddenly be our new best friends.  We would move them into the suburbs, give them all the cat food they want, offer them a few free continuing education classes down at the community college.  Maybe, I don’t know, come up with a non-derogatory name for them.  The returning armada would see through that bullshit in a second, but we might score some points for effort.

The only real hope we have is that the alien overlords are just as big of assholes as we are.  They have a caste system where the workers are deprived of education, initiative, and self-determination.  The complete alien society might exist in perfect harmony, with all classes benefiting through selfless cooperation, but it sounds more like some majorly bougie shit to me.  Wouldn’t it be as ironic as hell if the mothership ended up on Earth as an attempt by the workers to escape a life of slavery and discrimination?  Christopher Johnson (not his alien name, I'm guessing) rallying the downtrodden by saying, “Come on fellas, where ever we end up has to be better than this!”  Then he spent the next 28 years going “How was I supposed to know?”

Damn, now I need a prequel and a sequel.

Even without a clear resolution, the movie ends on a hopeful note.  It shows that even the most narrow minded, myopic lunkhead can make a change.  All that is needed is to see the humanity in others, metaphorically or not. 

C Chaka