On Saturday morning I saw District 9. The trailers for other movies (all “scary” movies for some reason) were way way way too loud. Unfortunately this noise pollution continued for the next two hours. I can’t hold it against the director, he has no control over the volume knob at the local cineplex. I keep thinking that the movie had too many gunshots/battles, but perhaps I wouldn’t mind them so much if they hadn’t been deafening.
I have few criticisms of this film (rare, I know). The first noticeable thing when leaving the theater is “hey, where was the scene where they interview an alien about how their weapons work?!” It wasn’t there. Also, the quick shot in all the ads of the mech suit grabbing an airborne projectile? They really shouldn’t have put that in the commercials. It takes place after a pivotal turning point for a character regarding his allegiances…but since we all saw the commercial we all know what happens next.
My other criticism may simply be that we saw far too little exposition. We get a few quick shots inside the spaceship when the aliens are “found” and then boom – 20+ years later, here we are. The movie moves along speedily enough to never get boring, but I would have loved to have seen more of the scientific study of the aliens that occured in the two decades after their arrival. There were a few viral videos online that showed this, and I suspect there will be a ton of it in the “deleted scenes” on a DVD eventually, but we never really saw anything in the final film. In fact, in one very tense scene a mutilated alien body is found. The time spent lingering on this subject (there are plenty of others in the same room) is never explained. I have a feeling a few scenes regarding that particular body were cut, which makes “Christopher’s” actions unexplainable.
Friday night I watched I Want to Believe, the 2008 forgotten X-Files movie sequel. I remember thinking that the well orchestrated cinematography and color management were the only thing that saved what was essentially a two-part tv episode. On the contrary, District 9 has little noticeable cinematography at all. The film is made to look like a combination of documentary and handheld DVcam the majority of the time. The director did a splendid job of smashing these competing “looks” together without the audience being the wiser. I noticed early on that the “commentary” at the beginning could have been made in past tense. It was very subtle though and I appreciated Blomkamp not babying the audience.
Anyway, back to my exposition criticism – From what I’ve read that may all be cleared up in District 10, the inevitable sequel. Other reviewers (including Ebert, I think) noted that the purpose of the ship or aliens is never explained. They are partially incorrect as one “commentator” scene clearly states that a “possible” explanation is that the aliens are workers and the ship jettisoned from the mothership at some point (for an unknown reason). The “worker” hypothesis is used vaguely throughout to explain how the “prawns” could have such an amazing ship but act like savages. It makes sense though. Not very many flight attendants know how to pilot a plane.
For only thirty million dollars the special effects were top notch. A few wide shots of the aliens skittering around in the African sunlight were a little iffy, but on the closeups when it counted the muscle movement on the alien faces were enough to (as the director intended) let us properly sympathize with them despite their grotesque appearance. By the end of the movie we’d rather rocket back to wherever “christopher” is from than see if Wickus ever sees his wife again.
One scene that I keep thinking about is the torture/weapons testing scene. I have a feeling this was lifted from descriptions of real torture scenarios. At some point while watching the mind begins to wander and think about the plight of the real Africans who had to live in the exact same sheds in “joburg” not so long ago. Once the audience is reminded of that fact, the director really ramps up the level of uncomfortableness by showing what we’re capable of doing to other “races” in the name of progress, racism, business or just plain fear.
Perhaps one reason this film is doing so well is because it is in this setting in Africa. It echoes a real-world atrocity, but for once it isn’t one that we (and we can be white people or Americans) perpetrated. To be honest, what I knew about what happened in South Africa was not as detailed before reading the reviews and interviews associated with this film.
In the final minutes of the film the keener members of the audience will realize the implications of “christopher” getting what he wants. It could mean that helping him, although altruistic, could bring about the death of every human (eventually). And so, one must confront whether they would just go ahead and kill “christopher” if they had the chance, as “wrong” as it may be, to save themself.
Of course, let’s hope if we ever meet aliens in this manner we’re smarter than the government and corporation in this film.
I read a paper this week on the logical impossibility of alien contact even though it is almost statistically a fact that there are or were (and will again be) worlds with life out there. The main point of the article was that even the life supporting planets of our own milky way galaxy are so far away that their communications wouldn’t reach us until their civilization had been dead for thousands of years or more. Ditto for actual travel, the time it would take (under ordinary constraints of physics) would be so long to visit that the undertaking would be pointless. And that doesn’t even take into account the fact that if they received signals from us they’d be smart enough to know that the civilization that produced “I Love Lucy” is long gone. Others are of the opinion that given this information it is possible that the only “aliens” that can and do visit us are so advanced that they basically exist in an entirely different manner and would likely be invisible to us. Still other scientist say we should be looking for Dyson Spheres for proof of advanced civilizations elsewhere, but what if the next stage of evolution is to move beyond the physical realm requiring ever increasing usage of energy?
By the way, the transition point between a type I civilization and type II is watching Avatar (the trailer is out now).
