[warning:they are a lot cuter in the film]
District 9.
You see the billboards, bus stops, bus ads, trailers, etc.
What is it about?
Well I watched it last night annnnnnd this is what I grasped from it:
-based on youth in South Africa during apartheid
-Blomkamp (director) and Sharlto Copley (main character/actor), who knew each other from high school, made the short film “Alive in Joburg,” influenced by the real former inner city District 6 in Cape Town.
-Johannesburg being filthy, drug populated, sex for money driven, weapons galore type of slums
-Aliens were mysteriously floating above Joburg, us damn humans broke in out of curiousity, aliens were dying and/or malnourished.
-We took them in into these slums and created district 9. they lived there, coined racial slur 'prawns', because they look like cute cuddly shrimpies.
-people hate the aliens, government tries to move them into a concentration camp situation. most get killed because of course, they don't wanna move.
-smarter alien named christopher plus cute little son of his are a big part of the story, they try to leave earth. FOR THE PAST 20 YEARS.
-Wilkus (played by Sharlto) slowly becomes one of them, helps christopher leave, due to the fact that christopher promises to change him into a human again.
-all in the process of finding out, the government won't let the aliens leave since they're trying to form a human/alien creature so they can use the alien weapons that they confiscated from the aliens (only alien DNA can operate alien machinery)
-Wilkus can use the machinery, thus pursuit ensues.
-government always a badie. like most films.
-aliens have personalities, even garb to cover themselves and they looooove catfood.
-bottem line: loosely based off of a previous written story by director Blomkamp.
Gives us a lesson in the casual cruelty of the “us verusus them” mentality.
The metaphor throughout the film: When you look at someone as an object or type instead of a thinking, feeling individual, you leave them no option but to do the same. It's racism, classism, ethnocentrism, imperialism, sexism — all the “isms.”
I give it a 5 out of 5.
:D go watch it now!
