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.
Aug/090
District 9 Part 1: Character
DISTRICT 9 is an interesting world, but the story is a mess. The plight of aliens relegated to a slum refugee camp is a metaphor for the townships of apartheid South Africa and the permanent refugee camps of Palestine. District 9 is maintained by the private defense contractor MNU, which is a nod to Blackwater and the atrocities in Iraq. A clever set up that the emotional arc of the main character Wikus does not match.
Wikus cheerfully works for MNU, with no thought to the poor treatment of the aliens, which are derogatorily called prawns. He is thrilled to be put in charge of relocating the aliens to a new camp, District 10, far away from Johnsonburg. To make the relocation seem less forced, MKU is serving the residents of District 9 with eviction notices. Wikus doesn’t think anything about insulting and threatening the residents to get their signatures. When he discovers a nest of eggs, he delights in killing the unborn aliens, smiling as the fire makes them pop. He registers no horror at this indiscriminate violence or the terrible conditions of the District. In short, even though Wikus loves his wife and seems kind of wimpy, he is not a good guy.
Because he is so complicit, Wikus has the potential to change dramatically making the story compelling. He does not. He never has a big change of heart, realizing what the government and MKU are doing is wrong. He never examines his role in any of it. Instead, he is out for himself for the whole movie until he has a radical and unsubstantiated shift in the last few minutes. He accidentally is exposed to alien DNA and begins to change into an alien himself. MKU want him because the alien weapons only work with alien DNA. They experiment on and torture him in a lab where they are hurting aliens. He escapes and ironically the only place he can hide is in District 9. This predicament does not make him change his mind about the government’s treatment of the aliens. He still has no compassion for them. All he can think about is finding a way to fix himself and return to his life.
In District 9 Wikus teams up with an alien, Christopher Johnson, who needs the black goo that turned him alien to run his spaceship. They strike a bargain to work together to raid the lab. Once Johnson has the fuel, he will fly up to the mothership and repair Wikus. Then they both will go home. But Wikus, focused only on himself, does not prepare Johnson for the horrors of the lab. This foray is a missed opportunity to see Wikus change. He would have been much more likeable here, if they had searched the lab for any imprisoned aliens and rescued them. Back in District 9, Wikus goes ballistic when Johnson tells him that it will take three years to fix him. After what he saw in lab, Johnson has to make rescuing his people his priority. Again, if Wikus had warned him, Johnson might have reacted differently.
Wikus responds by knocking Johnson out and stealing the spaceship with his son aboard. There are a number of problems here. 1) Wikus knows MKU is tracking them. He is leaving Johnson behind to be murdered. 2) He can’t fly the spaceship. 3) What is he planning to do when he gets aboard the mothership? He can’t fix his DNA himself. He does the same thing a few minutes later when he is in the fighting suit. The MKU guys have Johnson and are beating him. Wikus walks away, again leaving him to be killed. It is only when he hears the execution order that he turns back to help. This beat feels false because there has been no build up. We have not seen that Wikus’ feelings about the aliens have changed at all during his adventure. Furthermore, why leave him to die and have the change of heart when he hears the order. False.
The movie could have used the clever metaphor of the refugee camps to realistically portray a good government man’s evolution to whistleblower. The first act seemed to set up that Wikus sided with the aliens in some way. Since District 9 is so mysterious, it would have been entertaining to see Wilkus uncover something sinister and then risk his life exposing it. As it is, the movie feels like a giant so what because his change is last minute, unearned and unexplained.
DISTRICT 9 Part 2 tomorrow