Black Hawk Down

Rating: Null/10 (14 February 2010)

"It's got action. Big action. But in some ways it's also my anti-war film." – James Cameron
Released the same year as James Cameron's "Avatar", "District 9" essentially tells the same tale on a smaller budget. Like "Avatar", we watch as a young man "becomes an alien", learns to empathise with these "strange creatures" and then helps them battle a greedy corporation bent on exploiting their technology. Unlike Cameron's film, however, "District 9" is a bit more grungy in its approach, director Neill Blomkamp using faux documentary footage, shaky cameras, interview segments and a selfish hero, all of which help to keep "District's" copious clichés somewhat fresh.
Unfortunately, the film's second half quickly degenerates into a mindless shoot-em-up. What started off as an interesting sci-fi parable, quickly becomes an action movie reliant on chase scenes and an anime inspired robot-suit battle which – despite trumping Cameron's similar robot-suit battle at the end of "Avatar" – still feels too much like a video game.
Many have complained that the film makes allusions to Apartheid in South Africa (the aliens become slum dwelling blacks, ostracised by the whites), only to then abandon any real world context by having the "blacks" defeat the whites and then escape to their Mother Ship. But should this surprise us? "Avatar's" blue skinned "native American Indians" may have been slaughtered in real life, but in Cameron's film they likewise valiantly defeat their enemies.
The truth is, this is a common narrative arc in Hollywood. All these films are racial fantasies which resolve themselves in similar ways, cinema allowing us to exorcise our demons by helping the "rebels" defeat the "empire" and win. Those "ugly foreigners" may die in real life, but on screen we always help our little buddies triumph. How cute.
Indeed, with its airborne snipers, armoured convoys, circling helicopters and dirty shanty towns, "District 9" is best compared to Ridley Scott's "Black Hawk Down" (itself just one successor to old Cowboy vs Indian westerns) a film in which white soldiers mercilessly gun down a horde of slum dwelling, gun toting Africans because they "left a buddy behind". But with "District 9", the situation is reversed. The revenge fantasy is granted and the "left behind" aliens are allowed to destroy the white man before catching a ride back home.
And while "socially conscious" "war movies" like "Avatar" and "District" pander to fantasy, "straight" war movies simply portray the fantasy from the opposite perspective. Whether it be "Platoon", "Private Ryan", "Zulu" or "Black Hawk Down", the white man is always allowed to callously gun down hordes of aliens because our sorrow is always directed internally. We weep when our brothers in uniform die, because violence sucks when it happens to us. Very rarely do war films build to a climax in which one is positioned to mourn, or even consider, the loss of the Other.
So while films like "Avatar" and "District 9" pretend to be "socially relevant", they really just pander to the flip-side of the usual Hollywood formula. The Camerons, Costners and Blomkamps of the world want to mourn the slaughter of blacks, Indians, Vietnamese and intergalactic aliens, whilst simultaneously demonizing the might of military and corporate muscle, whilst the Stone's, Spielberg's and Scott's of the world want to romanticise our boys and bask in the nostalgic glow of brothers dying bravely in combat like blood splattered Christs, whilst simultaneously exalting the "never leave a brother behind" ethos of benevolent leaders. There is some truth in both approaches, perhaps, but too often these formulae resolve themselves by resorting to comfortable traditions and wish fulfilment. At least "District 9" "updates" some of these problems by having the ally of the aliens be a nerdy bastard who couldn't give a crap about helping the underdogs. Perhaps this is the future: I recognise your problem, but will only help you if it helps mine. Or to put it in "Avatar" terms: I see you, but don't give a f**k.
The real cutting edge of these themes can probably be found in such odd "war films" as Godard's "Our Music", in which the anger is precisely that it may be impossible for modern cinema – because of various factors which Godard catalogues like a raging professor - to actually give a hoot about the alien Other on screen (anti-establishment cinema is now a product sold by the status quo- think a smug politician like Al Gore telling us about climate change, or think "Full Metal Jacket", where a marine's anti-establishmentarianism is shown to itself be the seed of all working ideology). But it will be decades until such trends filter into the mainstream.
Aesthetically the film is fast and manic, though also thin. This is unsurprising. Old school Spectacle is dead. This is the age of information overload, of narrative excess, which is perhaps why the first act of "District 9", which bombards us with information, mixed points of views, documentary footage and interviews, feels the most spontaneous, exciting and energetic.
The film's climax hints at a sequel, but its hard to see where Blomkamp can take this material without going where "Alien Nation" went decades earlier. Perhaps the victimised aliens come back and wreck vengeance on Earthlings? Maybe a white hero stands up for all little guys, not just aliens? "Defiance" meets "Inglorious Basterds" with aliens? Blomkamp is so behind the times he might just do one of these.
7.9/10 - Worth one viewing.