ICON 2009: District 9

ICON 2009 kicked off on Sunday night at the Tel-Aviv Cinematheque, with a festive opening ceremony and the first Israeli screening of the eagerly awaited science fiction film ‘District 9’. The ceremony kicked off with a heartfelt performance (a less than perfect one, but just right for the event at hand) of the main themes from ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’, followed by a brief (and speedily delivered) opening speech by Uri Aviv, the festival’s director. Aviv introduced the festival’s special guests: Comics creator Bill Willingham (whom Midnight East will have an interview with in coming days) and Christian Lorenz Scheurer, a visual designer for movies and video games. Aviv also introduced Knessent member Nitzan Horovitz, who gave a speech about the major theme of the festival- ‘Future Cities’. His speech was very interesting, but perhaps a bit too heavy for the hundreds of Science fiction, Fantasy and Role-playing fans on the first day of the week-long celebration of their hobbies and passions, and Horovitz was clapped into wrapping-up his speech (though he seemed to take the slight in stride). The ceremony closed with another heartfelt performance of John Williams music, this time ‘The Imperial March’ (The orchestra received a standing ovation and calls for an encore).

After the ceremony, the crowd was ushered outside while the hall was being prepared for the opening film: the Peter Jackson produced ‘District 9’, director Neill Blomkamp’s feature-film debut.

 I feel rather lacking in trying to write about the film. I’ve heard mostly excellent things about the film, it was very well-reviewed and aside from a few early walk-outs, the audience seemed to love it. There’s obviously something I’m missing here. I don’t think the movie is bad. I enjoyed a bunch of it. But I saw a very different film than the one people are praising.

The film I’ve heard described is an original, beguiling and intelligent science-fiction film, which brilliantly matches form with concept to create an altogether superior film experience. The film
I saw was an interesting combination of a familiar and disreputable form with a familiar and compelling concept. Its failures are familiar, its successes are modest, and its overall impact is small. Trying to respond to the epic effort I’d been told to expect would be extremely uncharitable to the filmmakers, who have made a decent movie that could not possibly bear the weight that has been attached to it. So, in an attempt to move beyond the film’s over-exposure, as well as the contrarianism that undoubtedly contributes to my less-than-enthralled reaction to it, here are my impressions of the film, removed from the context of its hype.

At the core of ‘District 9’ is an idea. An alien ship comes to earth. They do not necessarily come in peace, nor do they come with aggression. No huge, earth-shattering motive of domination or enlightenment. They come defenseless (imposing though they might seem), in confusion, in desperation (it is never made explicitly clear). For their lack of ambition, they choose Johannesburg, South Africa over the chic alien landing sites in the USA. They are just sitting there, in their massive ship, in the skies of the city, not doing anything. The authorities are unsettled by this, and eventually, they take the ship by force, and relocate the alien population to a shanty-town called District 9. For 20 years, the aliens live in the outskirts of Johannesburg as second class citizens, with few rights, no representation, and incessant hostility from the locals. Things come to a head in 2010 when the aliens –given the derogatory nickname Prawns- have expanded beyond their shanty-town ghetto and the authorities decide to transport the entire alien community far away from Johannesburg, to what is for all intents and purposes a concentration camp.

It’s a fine idea. Using science-fiction’s glorious potential for allegory to get at Jim Crowe, the Holocaust and most obviously, Apartheid. It could make a terrific article, or short story (In fact, while watching the film, I was thinking about a specific short story- Isaac Asimov’s ‘Youth’, which compactly and concisely made a point not dissimilar from this film’s). It actually began life in short form, as ‘Alive in Joburg’, a 6 minute short film by Blomkamp. At 6 minutes, that short gets its point across effectively, and with time to spare. At 114 minutes (including credits), ‘District 9’ gets the point across, dulls it by ineffective repetition, and finally shoves it aside to make room for a buddy action movie.

 The first act of the film is about Wikus van der Merwe, a bureaucrat charged with getting the aliens of District 9 to sign the document that legalizes their transfer. Something very wrong happened with van der Merwe and District 9 (we’re not told what), and the gimmick is that after these events, a documentary crew has put together old footage of van der Merwe with newsreels and expert interviews, examining what happened. Helpfully, this faux-documentary contains the history of District 9, and plenty of images that encapsulate the basic premise of the movie. Although this first act is shot like a documentary -all shaky cameras and talking heads and acknowledging the cameraman- it is, unfortunately, edited and scored like a movie-trailer. It is made up almost entirely of highlights, scored as if every single thing we’re seeing is the most dramatic thing we’ve seen yet, and edited in a jumpy, unfocused fashion. The images are still there, and they do carry some punch- but the way they are put together implies a very short attention span on the part of the filmmakers. Acts two and three are more focused, which, in this case, means that they are paced more like a music video than a trailer (a definite improvement).

Shit goes down, the transfer of the aliens is not exactly successful, and Wikus van der Merve has one of the worst days imaginable (Kafka is referenced). The Apartheid/Holocaust corollaries ease up, and he is now a fugitive in an action film, kicking ass and taking names. Surprisingly, this is not as objectionable as one would expect. Yes, it’s rather less compelling than first section, but by this point, Blomkamp has already extensively showed how limited his thoughts of this allegory are, and has proven how it works as an image, not as a thesis or a new way of looking at it. So I settled in and mildly enjoyed the entertaining mayhem, the exploding bodies, the chases, the undying (and unbelievably bland) villain. The ludicrous coincidences, the alien machinery (mostly weapons), the thumping score and percussive editing. The conceit of the film is falsified by the fact that the movie is still shot to look like it was done by a news crew, even though they do not even pretend like that is the case for the latter portion of the film. But it’s fun enough, I guess. It’s got loads of visual effects, effects that are actually inventive and interesting (especially in the first act, where they do an uncanny job of convincing you of the reality of the termite-like aliens).

The only notable acting done in the film is by Sharlto Copley as Wikus. Wikus starts out as a weasely little bureaucrat, promoted by his father-in-law to the task of alien-mover. He goes through a lot over the course of the film, and we get some kind of appreciation for him by the end. Unfortunately, he is given a whole lot of painful and embarrassing comedy, which was tonally heightened, and felt out of place in the film. Every time he made an unbelievably dumb comment, the humanity and sympathy he’d built up evaporated, and it wasn’t until the end of the film that I could care about him without being pulled out by a bit of humor out of ‘The Office’ (Apparently, much of the dialogue in the film was improvised, which would explain the tonal inconsistency).

In closing, this film is an entertaining mess. It has an interesting opening with compelling images, entertaining action sequences, and very good visual effects. It is also poorly structured, poorly paced, poorly scored and remarkably un-ambitious for such a high-concept movie. Peter Jackson, a producer on the film, has called Neill Blomkamp a natural-born filmmaker. I beg to differ, but I suppose I’m grateful for his idea.