District 9

I am very impressed with this production. Directed by Neill Blomkamp and presented by Peter Jackson. Yesterday night I went along to see it at the cinema with little expectation and almost no knowledge of it's story or genre. I was going to see some scifi action and brilliant special effects. I got more than I expected from the visuals but something I did not expect was it's connection to real world affairs in discrimination and misunderstanding.

A mysterious alien vessel appears above Johannesburg, South Africa. An alien race is discovered on board and moved to the surface. This new area is known as District 9. The aliens are living in slums and brutally policed. The style of the film is like a documentary with interviews and footage of disturbing scenes within District 9. These scenes include the main character aborting an egg found in one of the shacks and abuse of many "prawns" as they are known to most humans.

This film is about racial hatred and ignorance through fear and a craving for power. The alien race simply provide a more digestible way to see this sort of human behavior towards the unknown. On top of this powerful message is the fact that it if full of the usual cliches yet achieves something different in my eyes. I have to say that the inclusion of spaceships, alien weaponry and realistic CGI helped the "digestion" of the film as well.