 Science fiction movies have always occupied an odd place in my heart. It is a favourite genre of mine, but at the same time I expect to be disappointed by most of it. So many directors and screenwriters use SF as a thin veneer of "nifty wow" over otherwise perfectly mundane stories. Many SF novelists have shown time and again that science fiction can be a powerful vehicle in storytelling, and not just as a setting! Aside from a very few not-terribly-recent standouts, there has been a real dearth of good SF movies.
Enter District 9. The situation: an alien spacecraft enters Earth's atmosphere and parks itself a few kilometres over Johannesburg, South Africa. For three months, nothing happens, and the SA authorities decide to go up and have a look-see. They cut into the ship, and find a million insectoid aliens, all in poor health. The theory is that the "command" caste died or left, leaving the workers behind, workers who have no drive, direction or initiative.
So the humans bring the aliens down and start a shanty town and build a fence around it. They do this to ostensibly help the aliens, but the truth is that us humans are only interested in their technology (which is considerably superior to ours, but we can't use it because their tech is initiated by alien DNA). Also, the humans take to calling the aliens "prawns," partly for looking like sea insects, but mainly because prawns are bottom feeders, and the term is a nasty pejorative, much like "chink" or "nigger."
There's much more in the movie about the way us humans treat the aliens that speaks to what we are often like as a species. I'll let you discover them yourselves, but be prepared for feeling decidedly uncomfortable. This is where director Neill Blomkamp shines, not only as a storyteller, but as a director who understands how SF can be used to lay bare the human condition. Blomkamp at first presents the aliens as moderately disgusting, animalistic and vicious. It's easy to see them that way, because they just aren't human. Over time, Blomkamp builds a powerful connection between the aliens and the audience, and the next thing you know, you're empathizing with the visitors from another world.
I knew that Blomkamp had me by the end of the movie. I suddenly realized that I had moments during the flick where I felt overwhelmed with rage at and loathing for my own species. I knew that everything he was saying was true, that human beings can be so incredibly sick and twisted and downright evil, and not even know it! I also knew that our current events and history are filled with examples of such disgusting inhumanity. And Blomkamp hammers all of that home in District 9 with all the subtlety of a mallet, reminding us that his aliens aren't so different from blacks, or Jews, or Chinese, or Romas, or gays, or Tootsies, or the poor, or or or...
I doubt Blomkamp did this movie just to entertain, or just to tell us that Humans Do Bad Things. It shouldn't be lost on most people that this movie takes place in the home of apartheid. I think he probably told this story because it needs to be told over and over again, until the xenophobes who wrap themselves in whatever nation's flag either die out or crawl into a cave somewhere. The same xenophobes who would sanction discrimination, which begets segregation, which is on the same slippery slope as "resettlement." All in the name of preserving the status quo and their advantage over other superficially different human beings.
Go see this movie, and bring your friends. But be prepared to feel deeply ashamed of humankind by the end.
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