Excellent film with a stark message

Rating: 10/10 (17 August 2009)

This film is one of the best films I have seen in many years because it asks the viewer to engage their brain and their conscience as well.
The film is about prejudice and the setting of South Africa is no accident as the eviction decree has the fascist bootprints of apartheid stamped all over it. The first ten minutes of this film are difficult to watch because of its eerily recalled riot suppression like in Soweto and other townships of the Apartheid era in South Africa. The MNU vehicles are all symbolic white as are their weapons again evocative of the apartheid era. Humanity's one fault over and over again has been the prejudice of difference and minorities. We see this starkly realised with the aliens, labelled 'Prawns', in the film being blamed for the rise in crime and we see signs of segregation where there are 'humans only' areas reminiscent of not only South Africa, but The United States as well.
Some see this film as funny in places, I don't! I realise that this film is telling us about how we will use anyone to get what we want these days. The weapons testing scenes are saying that the Military Industrial complex will do anything to make money. MNU, the company at the heart of the issue had chosen a scapegoat to go into District 9 and enforce the eviction order because the people higher up the corporate food chain needed someone to blame if it went badly. However Van De Merwe our anti-hero or accidental hero is contaminated and begins to transform into an alien and the old adage that you have to walk a mile in someone else's shoes before you understand them; this is his predicament and it comes crashing down on him as he realises that his own kind want to vivisect him and the only place he finds to hide is district 9 where he begins to understand the alien point of view. The substance that contaminated him is a fuel source that will enable the aliens to launch a rescue mission to their home system to eventually save the aliens and Van Der Merwe in 3 years and he will see what it is like to be an alien in this time as he will be one of them.
I believe this film is intended to show how easily prejudice occurs and before you realise it you are complicit in the oppression of another people, country, religion or just a minority with different views to yours. Van Der Merwe goes from being a tool of oppression to being saved and accepted by the oppressed people, a salutary lesson indeed.
I did find the Cloverfield documentary style a bit irritating, even although it is an aid to story exposition.
In the beginning Van Der Merwe is a man with a clipboard throwing his weight around and is not likable and the final scenes show a change. The change has the pathos of Frankenstein, with the now transformed Van Der Merwe making flowers and leaving them for his wife to find because he feels she wouldn't be able to accept as he is now and a sign of his love for his angel.