District 9
Alien(ation) and an Apartheid Allegory
2009-08-13
By Sergio A. Mims

CAST: Sharlto Copley
              Jason Cope
WRITTEN BY Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell
DIRECTED BY: Neill Blomkamp
** TWO STARS

In the past few months few films have gotten the kind of inside buzz among film geeks and sci-fi fans than District 9. Produced by the maker of the  Lord of the Rings trilogy and directed by  native South African neophyte Neill Blomkamp, the film came together hurriedly when the much  ballyhooed film project, Halo, a film version of the popular video game, fell apart at the last minute. Desperate to do something, Blomkamp quickly developed District 9, based on his previous short film, and with Jackson’s super status as an A-list director, the funding was found immediately and production began with Blomkamp co-writing and directing.

Yet despite all the frenzy that film has gotten even before its release, the real fact is that the hype doesn’t nearly match the evidence on the screen.

To call District 9 underwhelming would be an understatement. While it does have some rather intriguing ideas and themes as any good sci-fi film is required to have, it just eventually chucks them all to the side for a rather routine thriller that we’ve seen too many times to count.

Equal parts Cloverfield, with its hand held video “you are there” approach and War of the Worlds (with with two dozen other sci-fi movie references thrown helter-skelter throughout) the film begins cleverly enough when a gigantic spaceship filled with starving, otherworldly beings comes to Earth and hovers over Johannesburg. 

Some 20 years later, the aliens are still there, living in shantytowns and creating riots, havoc and general destruction and have multiplied all over the town giving the South African government
an enormous headache. In desperation the government decides to expedite the aliens out of the shanty towns into a concentration camps and the task to lead this evacuation falls on a nerdy, overly enthusiastic jerk of an bureaucrat  (played by Sharlto Copley). However when Copley, in his zeal, gets splattered with some alien DNA, he starts to become one of them, in body and spirit, setting off a race for his life and what could have been an intriguing look at race-mixing, liberalism and whole number of issues with parable potential.

The degenerates into nothing more than one long chase movie with fancy alien weapons, lots of exploding bodies and some Transformer-like robot thrown in for good measure.

Despite the routine tedium the film offers, the offensive and regressive portrayal of Black people in the film is even worse.

The film loosely takes its inspiration from the real-life District Six, a historic area in Cape Town where the regions “colored” population was segregated and developed its unique culture.  Because it sat on prime land, the section’s populated was forcible removed over a period of years.

espite that history and the unique opportunity of doing a sci-fi race allegory in a place like South Africa, most of the black characters in the film are nothing but background fodder as extras or with a few given a line here and there.

The only potential major black character, who plays Copley’s assistant, gets a few scenes in the beginning (usually with a terrified, scared rabbit look on his face recalling dim memories of Mantan Moreland)  and is not seen again until briefly at the end.

The other main black characters are of course the evil bad guys, a Nigerian criminal gang lead by a deranged psychopath who, under the spell of some witch doctor, wants Copley so he can, in effect, eat him to gain the strength of the aliens. Once again, an element grounded in some reality, but squandered here. Black women are virtually nonexistent, though predictably, one appears in a montage about human to alien prostitution.

With District 9 along with the controversial “Sambot” characters in Transformers 2,  it seems to be not a particularly good time for black characters in sci-fi films. Obviously aliens are coming with a message to communicate, but it’s not a friendly one.

After a promising start, District 9 becomes nothing more than a bitter and troubling disappointment, and . further evidence that the so-called “Obama effect” hasn’t completely caught up with Hollywood yet.  

Film critic, lecturer and festival consultant Sergio Mims covers all things film from the city that works, Chicago. He is a regular contributor to EbonyJet.com.