Slow start but worth the slog

Rating: 8/10 (31 January 2010)

Last week I picked up this DVD because I never got around to catching this movie while it was at the theaters, and I'd read that it was worth watching. Plus, it was being pushed by Peter Jackson ("Lord of the Rings"), so I had high hopes for it. The trailers didn't give away much, but did sort of give you a clue what the story line was, so I had an idea what I was going to see when I popped the DVD into the player.
And I was wrong on all counts. The story was nothing like I thought it would be, and the beginning was a let-down. The movie started off very slow, and, except for the computer-generated aliens, looked like it was made by a couple of kids using their parent's home movie camcorder. I knew that it was a low budget flick, but the write-ups had said the director achieved great things on very little money. After ten minutes I was just about to turn it off, when a little voice inside said "Give it a chance." So I did.
After another five or ten minutes, I noticed that I was becoming interested in spite of myself. The next time I noticed anything, the final credits were rolling. No, I didn't fall asleep, I was simply that riveted to the TV screen. I'm not sure if I breathed during the last thirty minutes.
Now, first off, this is a very violent and gory movie, and definitely not for everyone. But the story it told has stayed with me. I keep thinking about it - not about the gore or the special effects, but about what the writer was trying to say. You see, the movie was filmed in South Africa by South Africans. And the story is all about how people in power tend to marginalize people that aren't. That covers not only apartheid, but so very much more.
The story is about how some aliens got stranded here when their giant spaceship broke down. They "landed" just outside Johannesburg, so the local authorities gave them a small plot of land (district 9) to stay on until they died out. Unfortunately, they multiplied instead. Inside this reservation, makeshift shanties sprang up (i.e., a slum), and enterprising humans figured out a way to make a buck off the situation. For example, they sell addictive substances (in this case, cat food) to the aliens, in exchange for alien gadgets that no one can figure out how to work. They also introduce prostitution, infanticide, and other lovely concepts. As the film opens, almost thirty years have passed, and the government has decided the alien problem is too visible where they are, and besides, it needs that land back. So they're going to forcibly move the aliens to another spot of land, far away from the city. Only not everyone wants to go.
BTW: The disgusting slum in the film was a real slum just outside Johannesburg. A slum left behind when the powers-that-be decided to forcibly move a large population of second-class citizens to a new location, far away from the city. Looks like some things never change...