Aug/091
District 9 Part 2: Plot
DISTRICT 9 begins as a faux documentary with interviews and grainy footage. A camera crew follows Wikus into District 9 and watches him work. They capture his exposure to the alien DNA on film. We see his initial sickness through security footage at the office, home video at the party, and tape at the lab. However, once he escapes from the lab this conceit is abandoned. Most likely the filmmaker couldn’t figure out a logical reason for cameras to be following Wikus into District 9 and the rest of his adventure. Unfortunately, this change of style is jarring. The director should have found a way to make the movie documentary style the entire time like CLOVERFIELD. Or he should have used the interviews sparingly through the whole movie instead of concentrating them in the first act. If you’re telling your story in a certain way, it’s best to make it consistent.
Wikus being exposed to a substance that is slowly turning him into an alien feels like an old science fiction premise. This storyline does not match the inventiveness of the set up. We have seen a character turning into a monster/alien/zombie/vampire in countless movies. Consequently, DISTRICT 9 is a mishmash. It’s a faux documentary, a political allegory, a man turning into a monster movie, an action movie. As I suggested yesterday, I would have liked the movie better if Wilkus discovered some conspiracy in District 9, human or alien, that he risks his life to uncover. If the movie were about something that was directly connected to the aliens’ situation, it would have continued the metaphor, making the story sophisticated and compelling.
When you come up with a great idea, make sure that the rest of your movie matches it.
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4:58 pm on August 25th, 2009
A friend turned me on to your site a while ago, but I haven’t felt compelled to post anything until your recent comments about DISTRICT 9. I have to say, you’ve absolutely misread the film. It would take too long to go through your comments line by line, so I’ll just say this: it feels as though you’ve got a conventional and linear model of story structure embedded in your brain and anything that deviates from it is, in your opinion, poor story telling. You see Wikus as “not a good guy” because he “doesn’t think anything about insulting and threatening (the aliens).” He “has the potential to change dramatically… but does not.” You want him to discover some government misdoings and rescue helpless aliens in distress so we will like him and the ending will “match” what the beginning set up. But Wikus isn’t a bad guy. He’s an officious dunderhead living in fear of his disapproving father-in-law. It isn’t about him going from bad to good, but from weak to strong. So of course his journey is selfish — he’s trying to save his own hide AND escape capture with the only advantage he’s ever had in his life: alien DNA empowerment. That’s the change he experiences. Strength. And it doesn’t come in “the last few minutes” of the film, it comes at the end of the first act. That’s what makes the film so great. We’ve seen the righteous, selfless hero done well countless times before (Iron Man, Dark Knight, Spidey). This is way cooler. Fresher. Fun. Surprising.
If you’re looking for a violin-swelling change of heart and selfless acts of compassion, we find it in his alien partner: how he protects his son, how he’s working for his people, how he’s devastated at seeing the experiments being done, etc. This plays against that Disney film factory model of story-telling: the changes come from places and characters OTHER than what we expect. Yay! But if you’re still needing a leading character moment of goodness, where were you during the end of the film when Wikus climbs into the giant alien war machine and covers his buddy?
Yes, the third act is a bit tedious. We linger too long on the shoot-out and don’t take Wikus’ tragic evolution into any new place thematically or intellectually. But to impose your familiar structural fabric over it would have had me leaving the Arclight feeling cheated and pissed off at yet another bullshit studio formulaic happy ending, instead of feeling jarred and on edge but excited for the sequel, as District 9 did.
And finally, since I’m this far in, regarding your Part 2 comments… If you’re wishing that director Blomkamp made the film more like CLOVERFIELD, that amateurish and unfulfilling mess, you’re really not appreciating the raw, unsentimental, realism of what he pulled off.
But what do I know?