District 9 is a sci-fi movie written by a South African script writer Neill Blomkamp, and produced by Peter Jackson. This movie received generally positive reviews by critics and audiences alike. The title sounds weird and strange, so what exactly is District 9? Well, let me give you some insight into this movie. I would like to say first that this movie raises some very tough questions about ourselves, and we can only find solutions if we know Jesus.
Story: (4/5)
The story of the movie is a bit unusal. The story goes like this: In 1982, a giant alien spaceship landed in Johannesburg and hovered over the city's sky for three months. This event greatly distressed the locals and also people worldwide. Eventually, the South African government broke into the spaceship, and found the aliens onboard are all starving to death, and some are sick and extremely mal-nutritioned. The aiens seek refugee on earth, so the government put all the aliens in a special district and have restricted the alien activities within the district. People of Johannesburg dislike the aliens and want them to leave earth, giving them nicknames such as "prawns". The story then fast forward to present day, when the government decided to evict the aliens from district 9 and relocate them to a new planned area. I won't spoil the rest of the plot here..
I have so much I can say about this plot, I guess it is because I was an immigrant and grew up in South Africa myself. The first thing I spotted in the movie was that, the idea of District 9 is actually parallel to apartheid in South Africa than ended some 15 years asgo, in a way that during Apartheid, the black people were forced to live in segregated areas. However, to be honest, the story is so much deeper. I will break down into two major themes:
1) The movie is trying to make a point about Xenophobia. How did I see this? The aliens are nicknamed by the locals as "prawns", this is a reference to a type of cricket in South Africa the "king prawns" that usually lead to plagues. Now in South Africa, there are a lot of immigrants from other African countries such as Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Somalia etc.. The local African despise these people because they think these immigrants are taking their jobs. Same here, in the movie the aliens are seen by the lcoals as outsiders who have come to their land to take their lands away, and is causing the rise of crime rate and socio-economic problems, hence the "prawns" reference. This movie isn't just about racism, but about xenophobia, for racism is a much more narrow minded type of discrimination, when someone dislike someone because of their physical features. Xenophobia however, is the dislike for people who are from the outside, and is therefore a much wider form of discrimination that can happen in a racist free environment. For example, a white British can treat a black British as equals, but discriminate against an immigrant from Thailand, this is a good example of xeonophobia.
2) Moral complacency: When I was watching this movie, I always felt so frustrated with the main protaganist Wiskus Van Der Merve. he represents the kind of guy that has everything going in his life: a house, a career, a beautiful wife but is just complacent about the injustice in the world, and sort of goes with whatever the world tells him so he can fit in. However, later in the movie Wiskus had to make choices and even has to do some acts of self sacrifice to do what is right, and that was really good to see as it symbolises someone who gradually come out of the ivory tower and face the reality to make the right choice.
The Old testment has numerous accounts of Jewish people being exile and being "aliens" who are not welcomed in foreign lands for what they believe. I often feel really moved whenever I read the part of the Bible when he said the greatest commandents are "love God with all your heart, strength and soul, and love your neighbour as you would love yourself". However, it is really hard to put this into practise. It is really to love our neighbours when they are the kind of people you like, you know the cool people. But it is hard to love your neighbours when they are not the type of person you like to associate with, or to love your neighbours when they are very different to you, or when they are annoying you. We often choose the easier way out, which is to isolate the people we don't know or don't like, and just want nothing to do with them. If there is one thing I learned from this movie, then it is, next time when you are not loving someone because of whatever reason you have, think of how you will feel if you were that person. I guess this ties in really well with what Jesus said about loving people as you would love yourself.
What does this movie inspire me to do? Well, it really made me reflect on how I have been treating the people whom I don't like, or are annoying me, for my part I am really sorry that I have been treating a fellow Christian brother of mine as someone I wish to get rid off, and I had to repent for this. Another lesson I had to think about was, how have I been treating those people who no one else wants to associate with, I have been terrible at loving those who are rejected by others for whatever reason, and sometimes I even join in to bash those who are rejected by other people so I can fit in. In many ways, I am just as morally complacent as Wiskus Van der Merve.
In the movie, human treat the aliens like crap because they are aliens, but what about us when it comes to treating fellow human beings? No matter how shattered, broken, stupid, annoying or different they might be, at the end of the of day, the first book of the Bible said human are all made in the image of God, so next time when in your heart you decide someone is not good enough to be your friend because of that person is not intelligent, has ADHD, asbergers, smells bad or has opposite personality to you so on and so forth, remember that person was made by God just like you do, and is an image of God, and therefore carries His dignity just as you do.
Video and visual (3/5):
I was surprised that the DVD release was presented in 1.85:1 aspect ratio instead of the normal blockbuster 2.35:1 ratio. Neverthless, the special effects are very well done and the make ups are very realistic.
Sound and audio (4/5):
The sound and audio is very good, crystal clear just as any modern day sci-fi movies.
Final verdict (4/5):
This is a good movie, the one that will give you head explosions, and if you are willing to think deeper about the plot, and compare yourself against the main protaganist in the movie, it is likely you, like me will find myself very similar to the protaganist, it's just that we don't carry a mirror with us so we can see it. However, in contrast to Jesus our true sinful selves really show, I wonder when God watches us, if he feels just as frustrated with us like we are frustrated with good old Wiskus in the movie.
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